(Courtesy of Larval Subjects)
For a Trusty Voting Bloc, a Faith Shaken
By LAURIE GOODSTEIN
New York Times
AFTER the 2004 elections, religious conservatives were riding high. Newly anointed by pundits as “values voters” — a more flattering label than “religious right” — they claimed credit for propelling George W. Bush to two terms in the White House. Even in wartime, they had managed to fixate the nation on their pet issues: opposition to abortion, gay marriage and stem cell research.
Now with the 2008 race taking shape, religious conservatives say they sense they have taken a tumble. Their issues are no longer at the forefront, and their leaders have failed so far to coalesce around a candidate, as they did around Mr. Bush and Ronald Reagan.
What unites them right now is their dismay — even panic — at the idea of Rudolph W. Giuliani as the Republican nominee, because of his support for abortion rights and gay rights, as well as what they regard as a troubling history of marital infidelity. But what to do about it is where they again diverge, with some religious conservatives last week threatening to bolt to a third party if Mr. Giuliani gets the nomination, and others arguing that this is the sure road to defeat.
Many religious conservatives were proud to claim the mantle that Karl Rove bestowed on them as “the base of the Republican Party.” Now they fear they may have lapsed unwittingly into the same role that African-Americans play in the Democratic Party: a dependable minority constituency that is courted by candidates but never really gets to call the shots.
The candidates are certainly sending signals to that effect. While they’re eager to get as many conservative religious votes as they can, they’re no doubt aware of a shift since 2004 — that perhaps these voters aren’t the bloc they were once taken to be, that they don’t all answer to the same leaders, and that they might even be more pragmatic than in the past, more willing to sacrifice purity for viability in a candidate.
Scholars who study the role of religion in politics now say it is possible that the Bush years were an anomaly and that evangelicals, of whom religious conservatives are only a subset, could find themselves back where they were before — divided among themselves and just one of many interest groups vying for attention.
“It’s not so much that evangelicals are more divided than they were before, it’s that Bush himself was a unique candidate,” said Corwin E. Smidt, director of the Henry Institute for the Study of Christianity and Politics at Calvin College, an evangelical school in Grand Rapids, Mich. “It’s partly going back to previous patterns.”
And that stings. Religious conservatives were alarmed last month when none of the Republican front-runners showed up for the Values Voter Debate Straw Poll in Fort Lauderdale, Fla. More than 40 groups, some of them major organizations known for their capacity to mobilize voters, had put together the event. Questions were directed even at the no-show candidates, and many of those questions were angry.
“Beyond their cowardice, there’s an arrogance on the part of these candidates,” said Janet L. Folger, the president of Faith2Action, who helped organize the debate. “The arrogance is this: ‘We are just taking your votes for granted. You have nowhere else to go.’ ”
Phyllis Schlafly, the founder of Eagle Forum and a leader in the social conservative movement since 1972, said: “If the Republican Party kicks away the religious conservatives, then they’re entitled to be called the stupid party. You have to keep your own friends. A sense of betrayal can become more compelling than other issues.”
The overwhelming winner of the Fort Lauderdale straw poll, as well as a poll taken by a religious conservative group in South Carolina, was Mike Huckabee, a folksy Southern Baptist minister and former governor of Arkansas. But Mr. Huckabee has not yet registered in double digits in national polls and lags way behind in fund-raising.
Religious conservative leaders say they are having passionate debates in private over whether to choose a candidate based on viability or purity. Old allies find themselves fractured among the camps of Fred Thompson, Mitt Romney, John McCain, Duncan Hunter, Ron Paul and Mr. Huckabee.
The spectacle has laid bare the enduring myth that evangelicals are a monolith that is “easy to command,” to use the phrase made famous by a Washington Post article in 1993.
To Read the Rest of the Article
Wednesday, October 10, 2007
Tuesday, October 09, 2007
Brian De Palma's Redacted
The political storm and critical debate over Brian De Palma's new film is already heating up (and it has only just premiered at the NY Film Festival) and now it will certainly go into overdrive as De Palma states about the film: "Redacted is now itself redacted... My cut was violated."
An archive of the gathering storm is collected by Green Cine:
NYFF: Redacted
An archive of the gathering storm is collected by Green Cine:
NYFF: Redacted
Alex Rossmiller: What's Behind the Iraq-China Weapons Deal
What's Behind the Iraq-China Weapons Deal: Baghdad's decision to buy arms from China has less to do with the Iraqi government's quest for weapons and more to do with its concerns about the direction of U.S. policy.
by Alex Rossmiller
The American Prospect
Governments often send messages with their actions, particularly messages that can't really be delivered directly. A recent, mostly overlooked example of this was Iraq's announcement of a contract with China to buy $100 million worth of light weaponry.
Despite sounding significant, the amount is a relative pittance. Iraq also recently signed deals to buy $1.6 billion in U.S. arms, with another $1.8 billion in possible future purchases, so $100 million in arms is less than 3 percent of weapons deals planned by Baghdad in recent months. The symbolism, however, is tremendous, and for Baghdad to publicly announce the deal accentuates the point. Iraq may be under occupation, but this move is a reminder that there are other patrons available, benefactors who would be very happy to curry favor (and perhaps eventual oil contracts) by supplying military might. The central government in Baghdad, weak and under siege as it may be, still has plenty of oil money and, despite an apparently permanent occupation and no end of political manipulation by the United States, has the ability to act independently.
This small assertion of independence -- involving the only nation with an economy and military to rival the United States, no less -- reflects increasing Iraqi dissatisfaction with United States policy. The Shia-dominated Maliki government is profoundly concerned about the recent U.S. strategy of arming Sunnis, ostensibly against al-Qaeda, in Iraq's western, Sunni-controlled Anbar province. Shia leaders have warned against this program, complaining that arming and training "former" insurgents serves to arm a dissatisfied and rebellious anti-government force.
To Read the Rest of the Article
by Alex Rossmiller
The American Prospect
Governments often send messages with their actions, particularly messages that can't really be delivered directly. A recent, mostly overlooked example of this was Iraq's announcement of a contract with China to buy $100 million worth of light weaponry.
Despite sounding significant, the amount is a relative pittance. Iraq also recently signed deals to buy $1.6 billion in U.S. arms, with another $1.8 billion in possible future purchases, so $100 million in arms is less than 3 percent of weapons deals planned by Baghdad in recent months. The symbolism, however, is tremendous, and for Baghdad to publicly announce the deal accentuates the point. Iraq may be under occupation, but this move is a reminder that there are other patrons available, benefactors who would be very happy to curry favor (and perhaps eventual oil contracts) by supplying military might. The central government in Baghdad, weak and under siege as it may be, still has plenty of oil money and, despite an apparently permanent occupation and no end of political manipulation by the United States, has the ability to act independently.
This small assertion of independence -- involving the only nation with an economy and military to rival the United States, no less -- reflects increasing Iraqi dissatisfaction with United States policy. The Shia-dominated Maliki government is profoundly concerned about the recent U.S. strategy of arming Sunnis, ostensibly against al-Qaeda, in Iraq's western, Sunni-controlled Anbar province. Shia leaders have warned against this program, complaining that arming and training "former" insurgents serves to arm a dissatisfied and rebellious anti-government force.
To Read the Rest of the Article
Democracy Now: American Peace Activists Denied Entry to Canada After Appearing on FBI Database
American Peace Activists Denied Entry to Canada After Appearing on FBI Database
Hosted by Amy Goodman
Democracy Now
Two leading U.S. peace activists were denied entry into Canada on Wednesday after their names appeared on an FBI criminal database that the Canadian government is using at its borders. Ann Wright, a retired Army colonel and former diplomat, and Medea Benjamin, co-founder of women’s peace group CODEPINK, were headed to Toronto to discuss peace and security issues at the invitation of the Toronto Stop the War Coalition. Canadian authorities detained and questioned them for several hours at the border crossing between Buffalo and Niagara Falls.
The two women were apparently denied entry into Canada because their names appeared on an FBI-run international criminal database. Ann Wright and Medea Benjamin do have nine convictions between them, but all involving civil disobedience committed while protesting the war in Iraq.
On Thursday, they met with immigration officials at the Canadian embassy in Washington, D.C. and held a news conference outside. Ann Wright joins me now from Washington. She is a retired Army colonel and former diplomat who quit a 16-year State Department career following the invasion of Iraq in March 2003.
To watch/listen/read
Hosted by Amy Goodman
Democracy Now
Two leading U.S. peace activists were denied entry into Canada on Wednesday after their names appeared on an FBI criminal database that the Canadian government is using at its borders. Ann Wright, a retired Army colonel and former diplomat, and Medea Benjamin, co-founder of women’s peace group CODEPINK, were headed to Toronto to discuss peace and security issues at the invitation of the Toronto Stop the War Coalition. Canadian authorities detained and questioned them for several hours at the border crossing between Buffalo and Niagara Falls.
The two women were apparently denied entry into Canada because their names appeared on an FBI-run international criminal database. Ann Wright and Medea Benjamin do have nine convictions between them, but all involving civil disobedience committed while protesting the war in Iraq.
On Thursday, they met with immigration officials at the Canadian embassy in Washington, D.C. and held a news conference outside. Ann Wright joins me now from Washington. She is a retired Army colonel and former diplomat who quit a 16-year State Department career following the invasion of Iraq in March 2003.
To watch/listen/read
Richard W. Behan: A Materpiece of Propaganda
The Mega-Lie Called the "War on Terror": A Masterpiece of Propaganda
By Richard W. Behan
AlterNet
Since Sept. 11, 2001, the administration of George W. Bush has told and repeated a lie that is "big enough" to confirm Joseph Goebbels' testimony. It is a mega-lie, and the American people have come to believe it. It is the "War on Terror."
The Bush administration endlessly recites its mantra of deceit:
This is classic propaganda. In Goebbels' terms, it is the "state" speaking its lie, but the political, economic, and military consequences of the Bush administration lie are coming into view, and they are all catastrophic. If truth is the enemy of both the lie and George Bush's "state," then the American people need to know the truth.
The military incursions into Afghanistan and Iraq were not done in retaliation for 9/11. The Bush administration had them clearly in mind upon taking office, and they were set in motion as early as Feb. 3, 2001. That was seven months prior to the attacks on the Trade Towers and the Pentagon, and the objectives of the wars had nothing to do with terrorism.
This is beyond dispute. The mainstream press has ignored the story, but the administration's congenital belligerence is fully documented in book-length treatments and in the limitless information pool of the internet. (See my earlier work, for example.)
Invading a sovereign nation unprovoked, however, directly violates the charter of the United Nations. It is an international crime. Before the Bush administration could attack either Afghanistan or Iraq, it would need a politically and diplomatically credible reason for doing so.
The terrorist violence of Sept. 11, 2001, provided a spectacular opportunity. In the cacophony of outrage and confusion, the administration could conceal its intentions, disguise the true nature of its premeditated wars, and launch them. The opportunity was exploited in a heartbeat.
Within hours of the attacks, President Bush declared the United States "… would take the fight directly to the terrorists," and "… he announced to the world the United States would make no distinction between the terrorists and the states that harbor them." Thus the "War on Terror" was born.
The fraudulence of the "War on Terror," however, is clearly revealed in the pattern of subsequent facts:
* In Afghanistan the state was overthrown instead of apprehending the terrorist. Offers by the Taliban to surrender Osama bin Laden were ignored, and he remains at large to this day.
* In Iraq, when the United States invaded, there were no al Qaeda terrorists at all.
* Both states have been supplied with puppet governments, and both are dotted with permanent U.S. military bases in strategic proximity to their hydrocarbon assets.
* The U.S. embassy nearing completion in Baghdad is comprised of 21 multistory buildings on 104 acres of land. It will house 5,500 diplomats, staff and families. It is ten times larger than any other U.S. embassy in the world, but we have yet to be told why.
* A 2006 National Intelligence Estimate shows the war in Iraq has exacerbated, not diminished, the threat of terrorism since 9/11. If the "War on Terror" is not a deception, it is a disastrously counterproductive failure.
* Today two American and two British oil companies are poised to claim immense profits from 81 percent of Iraq's undeveloped crude oil reserves. They cannot proceed, however, until the Iraqi Parliament enacts a statute known as the "hydrocarbon framework law."
* The features of postwar oil policy so heavily favoring the oil companies were crafted by the Bush administration State Department in 2002, a year before the invasion.
* Drafting of the law itself was begun during Paul Bremer's Coalition Provisional Authority, with the invited participation of a number of major oil companies. The law was written in English and translated into Arabic only when it was due for Iraqi approval.
* President Bush made passage of the hydrocarbon law a mandatory "benchmark" when he announced the troop surge in January of 2007.
When it took office, the Bush administration brushed aside warnings about al Qaeda and Osama bin Laden. Their anxiety to attack both Afghanistan and Iraq was based on other factors.
Link to the Read the Rest of the Article
By Richard W. Behan
AlterNet
"If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it. The lie can be maintained only for such time as the state can shield the people from the political, economic and/or military consequences of the lie ... The truth is the mortal enemy of the lie, and thus by extension, the truth is the greatest enemy of the state."
--Joseph Goebbels, minister of propaganda in Nazi Germany, 1933-1945
Since Sept. 11, 2001, the administration of George W. Bush has told and repeated a lie that is "big enough" to confirm Joseph Goebbels' testimony. It is a mega-lie, and the American people have come to believe it. It is the "War on Terror."
The Bush administration endlessly recites its mantra of deceit:
The War on Terror was launched in response to the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. It is intended to enhance our national security at home and to spread democracy in the Middle East.
This is the struggle of our lifetime; we are defending our way of life from an enemy intent on destroying our freedoms. We must fight the enemy in the Middle East, or we will fight him in our cities.
This is classic propaganda. In Goebbels' terms, it is the "state" speaking its lie, but the political, economic, and military consequences of the Bush administration lie are coming into view, and they are all catastrophic. If truth is the enemy of both the lie and George Bush's "state," then the American people need to know the truth.
The military incursions into Afghanistan and Iraq were not done in retaliation for 9/11. The Bush administration had them clearly in mind upon taking office, and they were set in motion as early as Feb. 3, 2001. That was seven months prior to the attacks on the Trade Towers and the Pentagon, and the objectives of the wars had nothing to do with terrorism.
This is beyond dispute. The mainstream press has ignored the story, but the administration's congenital belligerence is fully documented in book-length treatments and in the limitless information pool of the internet. (See my earlier work, for example.)
Invading a sovereign nation unprovoked, however, directly violates the charter of the United Nations. It is an international crime. Before the Bush administration could attack either Afghanistan or Iraq, it would need a politically and diplomatically credible reason for doing so.
The terrorist violence of Sept. 11, 2001, provided a spectacular opportunity. In the cacophony of outrage and confusion, the administration could conceal its intentions, disguise the true nature of its premeditated wars, and launch them. The opportunity was exploited in a heartbeat.
Within hours of the attacks, President Bush declared the United States "… would take the fight directly to the terrorists," and "… he announced to the world the United States would make no distinction between the terrorists and the states that harbor them." Thus the "War on Terror" was born.
The fraudulence of the "War on Terror," however, is clearly revealed in the pattern of subsequent facts:
* In Afghanistan the state was overthrown instead of apprehending the terrorist. Offers by the Taliban to surrender Osama bin Laden were ignored, and he remains at large to this day.
* In Iraq, when the United States invaded, there were no al Qaeda terrorists at all.
* Both states have been supplied with puppet governments, and both are dotted with permanent U.S. military bases in strategic proximity to their hydrocarbon assets.
* The U.S. embassy nearing completion in Baghdad is comprised of 21 multistory buildings on 104 acres of land. It will house 5,500 diplomats, staff and families. It is ten times larger than any other U.S. embassy in the world, but we have yet to be told why.
* A 2006 National Intelligence Estimate shows the war in Iraq has exacerbated, not diminished, the threat of terrorism since 9/11. If the "War on Terror" is not a deception, it is a disastrously counterproductive failure.
* Today two American and two British oil companies are poised to claim immense profits from 81 percent of Iraq's undeveloped crude oil reserves. They cannot proceed, however, until the Iraqi Parliament enacts a statute known as the "hydrocarbon framework law."
* The features of postwar oil policy so heavily favoring the oil companies were crafted by the Bush administration State Department in 2002, a year before the invasion.
* Drafting of the law itself was begun during Paul Bremer's Coalition Provisional Authority, with the invited participation of a number of major oil companies. The law was written in English and translated into Arabic only when it was due for Iraqi approval.
* President Bush made passage of the hydrocarbon law a mandatory "benchmark" when he announced the troop surge in January of 2007.
When it took office, the Bush administration brushed aside warnings about al Qaeda and Osama bin Laden. Their anxiety to attack both Afghanistan and Iraq was based on other factors.
Link to the Read the Rest of the Article
Nick Turse: New York City's Explosion in Police Repression and Surveillance Is a Threat to Us All
New York City's Explosion in Police Repression and Surveillance Is a Threat to Us All
By Nick Turse
Tomdispatch and AlterNet
One day in August, I walked into the Daniel Patrick Moynihan United States Courthouse in lower Manhattan. Nearly three years before I had been locked up, about two blocks away, in "the Tombs" -- the infamous jail then named the Bernard B. Kerik Complex for the now-disgraced New York City Police Commissioner. You see, I am one of the demonstrators who was illegally arrested by the New York City Police Department (NYPD) during the protests against the 2004 Republican National Convention (RNC). My crime had been -- in an effort to call attention to the human toll of America's wars -- to ride the subway, dressed in black with the pallor of death about me (thanks to cornstarch and cold cream), and an expression to match, sporting a placard around my neck that read: WAR DEAD.
I was with a small group and our plan was to travel from Union Square to Harlem, change trains, and ride all the way back down to Astor Place. But when my small group exited the train at the 125th Street station in Harlem, we were arrested by a swarm of police, marched to a waiting paddy wagon and driven to a filthy detention center. There, we were locked away for hours in a series of razor-wire-topped pens, before being bussed to the Tombs.
Now, I was back to resolve the matter of my illegal arrest. As I walked through the metal detector of the Federal building, a security official searched my bag. He didn't like what he found. "You could be shot for carrying that in here," he told me. "You could be shot."
For the moment, however, the identification of that dangerous object I attempted to slip into the federal facility will have to wait. Let me instead back up to July 2004, when, with the RNC fast-approaching, I authored an article on the militarization of Manhattan -- "the transformation of the island into a 'homeland-security state'" -- and followed it up that September with a street-level recap of the convention protests, including news of the deployment of an experimental sound weapon, the Long Range Acoustic Device, by the NYPD, and the department's use of an on-loan Fuji blimp as a "spy-in-the-sky." Back then, I suggested that the RNC gave New York's "finest," a perfect opportunity to "refine, perfect, and implement new tactics (someday, perhaps, to be known as the 'New York model') for use penning in or squelching dissent. It offered them the chance to write up a playbook on how citizens' legal rights and civil liberties may be abridged, constrained, and violated at their discretion."
Little did I know how much worse it could get.
No Escape
Since then, the city's security forces have eagerly embraced an Escape From New York-aesthetic -- an urge to turn Manhattan into a walled-in fortress island under high-tech government surveillance, guarded by heavily armed security forces, with helicopters perpetually overhead. Beginning in Harlem in 2006, near the site of two new luxury condos, the NYPD set up a moveable "two-story booth tower, called Sky Watch," that gave an "officer sitting inside a better vantage point from which to monitor the area." The Panopticon-like structure -- originally used by hunters to shoot quarry from overhead and now also utilized by the Department of Homeland Security along the Mexican border -- was outfitted with black-tinted windows, a spotlight, sensors, and four to five cameras. Now, five Sky Watch towers are in service, rotating in and out of various neighborhoods.
With their 20-25 neighborhood-scanning cameras, the towers are only a tiny fraction of the Big Apple surveillance story. Back in 1998, the New York Civil Liberties Union (NYCLU) found that there were "2,397 cameras used by a wide variety of private businesses and government agencies throughout Manhattan" -- and that was just one borough. About a year after the RNC, the group reported that a survey of just a quarter of that borough yielded a count of more than 4,000 surveillance cameras of every kind. At about the same time, military-corporate giant Lockheed Martin was awarded a $212 million contract to build a "counter-terrorist surveillance and security system for New York's subways and commuter railroads as well as bridges and tunnels" that would increase the camera total by more than 1,000. A year later, as seems to regularly be the case with contracts involving the military-corporate complex, that contract had already ballooned to $280 million, although the system was not to be operational until at least 2008.
In 2006, according to a Metropolitan Transit Authority (MTA) spokesman, the MTA already had a "3,000-camera-strong surveillance system," while the NYPD was operating "an additional 3,000 cameras" around the city. That same year, Bill Brown, a member of the Surveillance Camera Players -- a group that leads surveillance-camera tours and maps their use around the city, estimated, according to a Newsweek article, that the total number of surveillance cameras in New York exceeded 15,000 -- "a figure city officials say they have no way to verify because they lack a system of registry." Recently, Brown told me that 15,000 was an estimate for the number of cameras in Manhattan, alone. For the city as a whole, he suspects the count has now reached about 40,000.
Link to the Rest of the Hyperlinked Article
By Nick Turse
Tomdispatch and AlterNet
One day in August, I walked into the Daniel Patrick Moynihan United States Courthouse in lower Manhattan. Nearly three years before I had been locked up, about two blocks away, in "the Tombs" -- the infamous jail then named the Bernard B. Kerik Complex for the now-disgraced New York City Police Commissioner. You see, I am one of the demonstrators who was illegally arrested by the New York City Police Department (NYPD) during the protests against the 2004 Republican National Convention (RNC). My crime had been -- in an effort to call attention to the human toll of America's wars -- to ride the subway, dressed in black with the pallor of death about me (thanks to cornstarch and cold cream), and an expression to match, sporting a placard around my neck that read: WAR DEAD.
I was with a small group and our plan was to travel from Union Square to Harlem, change trains, and ride all the way back down to Astor Place. But when my small group exited the train at the 125th Street station in Harlem, we were arrested by a swarm of police, marched to a waiting paddy wagon and driven to a filthy detention center. There, we were locked away for hours in a series of razor-wire-topped pens, before being bussed to the Tombs.
Now, I was back to resolve the matter of my illegal arrest. As I walked through the metal detector of the Federal building, a security official searched my bag. He didn't like what he found. "You could be shot for carrying that in here," he told me. "You could be shot."
For the moment, however, the identification of that dangerous object I attempted to slip into the federal facility will have to wait. Let me instead back up to July 2004, when, with the RNC fast-approaching, I authored an article on the militarization of Manhattan -- "the transformation of the island into a 'homeland-security state'" -- and followed it up that September with a street-level recap of the convention protests, including news of the deployment of an experimental sound weapon, the Long Range Acoustic Device, by the NYPD, and the department's use of an on-loan Fuji blimp as a "spy-in-the-sky." Back then, I suggested that the RNC gave New York's "finest," a perfect opportunity to "refine, perfect, and implement new tactics (someday, perhaps, to be known as the 'New York model') for use penning in or squelching dissent. It offered them the chance to write up a playbook on how citizens' legal rights and civil liberties may be abridged, constrained, and violated at their discretion."
Little did I know how much worse it could get.
No Escape
Since then, the city's security forces have eagerly embraced an Escape From New York-aesthetic -- an urge to turn Manhattan into a walled-in fortress island under high-tech government surveillance, guarded by heavily armed security forces, with helicopters perpetually overhead. Beginning in Harlem in 2006, near the site of two new luxury condos, the NYPD set up a moveable "two-story booth tower, called Sky Watch," that gave an "officer sitting inside a better vantage point from which to monitor the area." The Panopticon-like structure -- originally used by hunters to shoot quarry from overhead and now also utilized by the Department of Homeland Security along the Mexican border -- was outfitted with black-tinted windows, a spotlight, sensors, and four to five cameras. Now, five Sky Watch towers are in service, rotating in and out of various neighborhoods.
With their 20-25 neighborhood-scanning cameras, the towers are only a tiny fraction of the Big Apple surveillance story. Back in 1998, the New York Civil Liberties Union (NYCLU) found that there were "2,397 cameras used by a wide variety of private businesses and government agencies throughout Manhattan" -- and that was just one borough. About a year after the RNC, the group reported that a survey of just a quarter of that borough yielded a count of more than 4,000 surveillance cameras of every kind. At about the same time, military-corporate giant Lockheed Martin was awarded a $212 million contract to build a "counter-terrorist surveillance and security system for New York's subways and commuter railroads as well as bridges and tunnels" that would increase the camera total by more than 1,000. A year later, as seems to regularly be the case with contracts involving the military-corporate complex, that contract had already ballooned to $280 million, although the system was not to be operational until at least 2008.
In 2006, according to a Metropolitan Transit Authority (MTA) spokesman, the MTA already had a "3,000-camera-strong surveillance system," while the NYPD was operating "an additional 3,000 cameras" around the city. That same year, Bill Brown, a member of the Surveillance Camera Players -- a group that leads surveillance-camera tours and maps their use around the city, estimated, according to a Newsweek article, that the total number of surveillance cameras in New York exceeded 15,000 -- "a figure city officials say they have no way to verify because they lack a system of registry." Recently, Brown told me that 15,000 was an estimate for the number of cameras in Manhattan, alone. For the city as a whole, he suspects the count has now reached about 40,000.
Link to the Rest of the Hyperlinked Article
Kent Greenfield: Supreme Court Preview- One of the Most Important Cases You Haven't Yet Heard About
Supreme Court Preview- One of the Most Important Cases You Haven't Yet Heard About: The Stoneridge Case and "Scheme" Liability Under Federal Security Laws
by Kent Greenfield, Professor of Law at Boston College and Distinguished Faculty Fellow at the Center on Corporations, Law & Society, Seattle University School of Law
American Constitution Society
The Supreme Court will hear arguments today (Tuesday, October 9) in what some are calling the most important business case to come before the Court in a decade -- Stoneridge Investment Partners v. Scientific-Atlanta Inc. The facts pertain to the financial shenanigans of a cable television company, but the Court’s decision could have wide ranging implications for law firms, accounting firms, and banks, among others, and – depending on which side you listen to – could either damage the nation’s international financial competitiveness or leave millions of investors underprotected from fraudulent schemes.
The case arose from an alleged fraudulent scheme initiated by Charter Communications, one of the nation’s largest cable companies. In the summer of 2000, it became clear to Charter executives that it would not meet Wall Street’s expectations for annual cash flow and revenue. (Of course, the fact that companies have to focus increasingly on the short-term to the detriment of the long-term health of the company, much less society, is the root of many evils.) Charter asked two of its suppliers, Scientific-Atlanta and Motorola, to help out by inflating the prices it charged Charter for set-top boxes. The suppliers also had to produce private documents lying about the reason and the timing of the increase.
The suppliers agreed to pay back to Charter the same amount of money – $17 million in total – for advertising, which was really free. This “wash transaction” was done to mislead Charter’s external auditor and thus the market. The amounts paid for the set-top boxes were accounted for as capital expenses, appearing on the books over several years. The advertising “revenue” was reported in a lump sum, which made it appear to the auditor and investors that Charter had met its financial targets, which bolstered the stock price. When the fraud came to light two years later, Charter stock plummeted from $26 to 78 cents, costing shareholders millions.
The plaintiff class is a group of Charter shareholders who sued Charter and its suppliers for a violation of Rule 10b-5 of the federal securities laws, which makes it illegal to engage in a “scheme” to defraud. Charter settled. But the district court threw out the case against the suppliers, and the Eighth Circuit affirmed, saying that the suppliers themselves had not made any misstatements to the market and that the Supreme Court had said a decade ago, in Central Bank of Denver v. First Interstate Bank of Denver, that 10b-5 does not reach those who only “aid or abet” a violation.
To Read the Rest of the Post
by Kent Greenfield, Professor of Law at Boston College and Distinguished Faculty Fellow at the Center on Corporations, Law & Society, Seattle University School of Law
American Constitution Society
The Supreme Court will hear arguments today (Tuesday, October 9) in what some are calling the most important business case to come before the Court in a decade -- Stoneridge Investment Partners v. Scientific-Atlanta Inc. The facts pertain to the financial shenanigans of a cable television company, but the Court’s decision could have wide ranging implications for law firms, accounting firms, and banks, among others, and – depending on which side you listen to – could either damage the nation’s international financial competitiveness or leave millions of investors underprotected from fraudulent schemes.
The case arose from an alleged fraudulent scheme initiated by Charter Communications, one of the nation’s largest cable companies. In the summer of 2000, it became clear to Charter executives that it would not meet Wall Street’s expectations for annual cash flow and revenue. (Of course, the fact that companies have to focus increasingly on the short-term to the detriment of the long-term health of the company, much less society, is the root of many evils.) Charter asked two of its suppliers, Scientific-Atlanta and Motorola, to help out by inflating the prices it charged Charter for set-top boxes. The suppliers also had to produce private documents lying about the reason and the timing of the increase.
The suppliers agreed to pay back to Charter the same amount of money – $17 million in total – for advertising, which was really free. This “wash transaction” was done to mislead Charter’s external auditor and thus the market. The amounts paid for the set-top boxes were accounted for as capital expenses, appearing on the books over several years. The advertising “revenue” was reported in a lump sum, which made it appear to the auditor and investors that Charter had met its financial targets, which bolstered the stock price. When the fraud came to light two years later, Charter stock plummeted from $26 to 78 cents, costing shareholders millions.
The plaintiff class is a group of Charter shareholders who sued Charter and its suppliers for a violation of Rule 10b-5 of the federal securities laws, which makes it illegal to engage in a “scheme” to defraud. Charter settled. But the district court threw out the case against the suppliers, and the Eighth Circuit affirmed, saying that the suppliers themselves had not made any misstatements to the market and that the Supreme Court had said a decade ago, in Central Bank of Denver v. First Interstate Bank of Denver, that 10b-5 does not reach those who only “aid or abet” a violation.
To Read the Rest of the Post
Duck Soup/Hannah and Her Sisters
"Look at the people up there on the screen, they're so funny ... What if the worst were true, there's no God, you only go around once, and that's it? Well, don't you want to be part of the experience? It's not all a drag. I should stop ruining my life looking for answers I'm never going to get, and just enjoy myself while it lasts..."
----Mickey Sachs epiphany while watching Duck Soup (1933) in Hannah and Her Sisters (1986)
A Message to the Democrats "and" the Republicans
Make Love, Not War
(and an extra reminder to the republicans that it is OK to come out the closet)
(and an extra reminder to the republicans that it is OK to come out the closet)
Monday, October 08, 2007
Jessica Poundstone: Response to a Bill Frisell Concert
(Courtesy of Jeffrey Overstreet)
"Sometimes music is like one of those programs you run on your computer to optimize your hard drive: it heals a million little broken things you didn't even know needed attention."
link
"Sometimes music is like one of those programs you run on your computer to optimize your hard drive: it heals a million little broken things you didn't even know needed attention."
link
Power Shift (College Park, MD: November 2-5)
(Courtesy of Rebecca Glasscock)
November 2-5: Power Shift, College Park, Maryland. This is a conference for students on global climate change and how to get this country shifted into action to avert disaster. I know that some students from TERRA (Transylvania’s environmental club) and Green Thumb (UK’s environmental club) are going. Is anyone interested in going? For more information, go to the website at Power Shift
November 2-5: Power Shift, College Park, Maryland. This is a conference for students on global climate change and how to get this country shifted into action to avert disaster. I know that some students from TERRA (Transylvania’s environmental club) and Green Thumb (UK’s environmental club) are going. Is anyone interested in going? For more information, go to the website at Power Shift
Lexington’s 3rd Annual Multi-Faith Walk for World Peace and Solidarity (October 14)
Sunday, October 14, 3-5 pm, Lexington’s 3rd Annual Multi-Faith Walk for World Peace and Solidarity. Gather at High Street and Martin Luther King Boulevard parking lot above Lexington Transit Center at 2:45 p.m. Walk to Woodland Park gazebo beginning at 3:00 p.m. Picnic at 5:00 p.m. at Woodland Park.
John Bowe: Slavery Is Alive and Well in the U.S.
Slavery Is Alive and Well in the U.S.
By Suzi Steffen
AlterNet
The new book Nobodies: Modern American Slave Labor and the Dark Side of the Global Economy, goes after the U.S. companies that support slave labor.
What do you call it when those who cross the Mexican-U.S. border get charged thousands of dollars for a ride to a job where their employer makes them pay rent for unspeakably bad living conditions and board for the food they can only buy at the company store and where that employer patrols with dogs, trucks and thugs so the workers can't leave?
John Bowe calls it slavery. And it's happening in the United States right now, he says. Bowe's newest book, Nobodies: Modern American Slave Labor and the Dark Side of the Global Economy, makes the case using three specific cases and geographical areas to show just how much workers in the U.S. get undermined and hurt by these practices.
He's written about work before; he co-edited the book Gig: Americans Talk About Their Jobs. Besides co-writing the screenplay for the movie Basquiat, Bowe has won many journalism awards. But from a tip he got while writing Gig, he began to pursue this topic, and he's been working on it for over six years now.
"We never see what we do to other people," he says. In Nobodies, he pulls back that veil of secrecy and shows us just what we do in our quest for lower-priced goods. In the process, he and the book have gotten a flurry of interviews, reviews and even a moment with Jon Stewart. We interviewed him over the phone and email in a break on his book tour.
Suzi Steffen: Your book is getting a lot of attention. What was it like being on the Daily Show?
John Bowe: It's weird doing these things -- weird, powerful, exciting, frustrating. You don't say half the things you wanted to say. I felt like, "Oh damn it, I forgot to offer any solutions," I forgot to talk about why nonslavery people should care about this, for example.
But all anybody else cares about is your shirt and if you smiled. It says a lot about our political climate that it takes a comedian to address the issue of labor slavery. It was hard to have a serious discussion and talk, say, about the roots and implications of the problem, much less more solution-oriented stuff. But at the same time, I have enormous admiration for Jon Stewart for having me on the show. Slavery's not usually a great source of humor.
SS: You did have a nice shirt on. In the first part of the book, about the agricultural workers in Florida, you talk about the collision of your journalist New Yorker's irony with the earnest belief and idealism of activists. Did you change over the course of writing the book? Do you find yourself less ironic now?
JB: There really is a fundamental choice; you can't both believe and be ironic. It did make me get more earnest. Even if you don't care about politics, politics certainly cares about you. If you don't take part of your time to address the socioeconomic/political realities unfolding around you, it will come, and it will fuck you over. There's no free pass. I have no patience for anybody who's whining about [politics] and not doing something about it. The more you read about history, the more you realize that's a luxury most people haven't been able to afford.
I've become much more clued in to the way irony is used by politically inclined people to salve their frustrations about political realities. Although I love humor like The Daily Show and The Onion, it's kind of sad that these have become the main conduits for so many people's political awareness. Unfortunately, sitting there, laughing (alone, by the millions) at people or things you know are bullshit or wrong isn't a replacement for voting, protesting, raising awareness, throwing rocks, defacing property or doing whatever real-life actions you find effective in achieving actual change in this world.
SS: What should average people do to find out more about the conditions under which their food was grown and to change those conditions?
JB: Read my book. (laughs) The Coalition of Immokalee Workers' website is certainly one place to go. And there's a tremendous book called The Fatal Harvest Reader: The Tragedy of Industrial Agriculture, by Andrew Kimbrell.
But also, ask questions. Always. All of this stuff I'm talking about sounds so serious and intractable, and it's easy to say, "Aggh, corporations rule the world and everything sucks. I might as well go home and do some bong hits." But it begins with you asking questions: Where did this apple come from? Who picked it? Where's the field? Do you mind if I go drive by the field some day?
To Read the Rest of the Interview
By Suzi Steffen
AlterNet
The new book Nobodies: Modern American Slave Labor and the Dark Side of the Global Economy, goes after the U.S. companies that support slave labor.
What do you call it when those who cross the Mexican-U.S. border get charged thousands of dollars for a ride to a job where their employer makes them pay rent for unspeakably bad living conditions and board for the food they can only buy at the company store and where that employer patrols with dogs, trucks and thugs so the workers can't leave?
John Bowe calls it slavery. And it's happening in the United States right now, he says. Bowe's newest book, Nobodies: Modern American Slave Labor and the Dark Side of the Global Economy, makes the case using three specific cases and geographical areas to show just how much workers in the U.S. get undermined and hurt by these practices.
He's written about work before; he co-edited the book Gig: Americans Talk About Their Jobs. Besides co-writing the screenplay for the movie Basquiat, Bowe has won many journalism awards. But from a tip he got while writing Gig, he began to pursue this topic, and he's been working on it for over six years now.
"We never see what we do to other people," he says. In Nobodies, he pulls back that veil of secrecy and shows us just what we do in our quest for lower-priced goods. In the process, he and the book have gotten a flurry of interviews, reviews and even a moment with Jon Stewart. We interviewed him over the phone and email in a break on his book tour.
Suzi Steffen: Your book is getting a lot of attention. What was it like being on the Daily Show?
John Bowe: It's weird doing these things -- weird, powerful, exciting, frustrating. You don't say half the things you wanted to say. I felt like, "Oh damn it, I forgot to offer any solutions," I forgot to talk about why nonslavery people should care about this, for example.
But all anybody else cares about is your shirt and if you smiled. It says a lot about our political climate that it takes a comedian to address the issue of labor slavery. It was hard to have a serious discussion and talk, say, about the roots and implications of the problem, much less more solution-oriented stuff. But at the same time, I have enormous admiration for Jon Stewart for having me on the show. Slavery's not usually a great source of humor.
SS: You did have a nice shirt on. In the first part of the book, about the agricultural workers in Florida, you talk about the collision of your journalist New Yorker's irony with the earnest belief and idealism of activists. Did you change over the course of writing the book? Do you find yourself less ironic now?
JB: There really is a fundamental choice; you can't both believe and be ironic. It did make me get more earnest. Even if you don't care about politics, politics certainly cares about you. If you don't take part of your time to address the socioeconomic/political realities unfolding around you, it will come, and it will fuck you over. There's no free pass. I have no patience for anybody who's whining about [politics] and not doing something about it. The more you read about history, the more you realize that's a luxury most people haven't been able to afford.
I've become much more clued in to the way irony is used by politically inclined people to salve their frustrations about political realities. Although I love humor like The Daily Show and The Onion, it's kind of sad that these have become the main conduits for so many people's political awareness. Unfortunately, sitting there, laughing (alone, by the millions) at people or things you know are bullshit or wrong isn't a replacement for voting, protesting, raising awareness, throwing rocks, defacing property or doing whatever real-life actions you find effective in achieving actual change in this world.
SS: What should average people do to find out more about the conditions under which their food was grown and to change those conditions?
JB: Read my book. (laughs) The Coalition of Immokalee Workers' website is certainly one place to go. And there's a tremendous book called The Fatal Harvest Reader: The Tragedy of Industrial Agriculture, by Andrew Kimbrell.
But also, ask questions. Always. All of this stuff I'm talking about sounds so serious and intractable, and it's easy to say, "Aggh, corporations rule the world and everything sucks. I might as well go home and do some bong hits." But it begins with you asking questions: Where did this apple come from? Who picked it? Where's the field? Do you mind if I go drive by the field some day?
To Read the Rest of the Interview
Thursday, October 04, 2007
The Congressional Committee on Oversight and Government Reform: "Misleading Information from the Battlefield."
Nancy Pelosi comments:
Watch/listen to more eye-opening testimonies:
Misleading Information from the Battlefield
The hearing focuses on the death of Army Ranger Specialist Patrick Tillman in Afghanistan and the capture and rescue of Army Private Jessica Lynch in Iraq. The Committee examines why inaccurate accounts of these two incidents were disseminated, the sources and motivations for the accounts, and whether the appropriate Administration officials have been held accountable. Army Private Jessica Lynch gives opening remarks.
Watch/listen to more eye-opening testimonies:
Misleading Information from the Battlefield
Democracy Now: Susan Faludi's The Terror Dream
Author and Social Critic Susan Faludi on The Terror Dream: Fear and Fantasy in Post-9/11 America
Hosted by Juan Gonzalez and Amy Goodman
Democracy Now
In her new book, leading social critic and Pulitzer-winning journalist Susan Faludi examines the cultural impact of the 9/11 attacks and concludes that the United States has been living in a myth since. She explores how the attacks led to the denigration of women here in the United States, the magnification of manly men and the call for greater domesticity. Faludi joins us to talk about the Bush administration's use of feminism to launch the war on Afghanistan, the case of Private Jessica Lynch, the Republican W. Stands for Women campaign, and more.
...
Susan Faludi. Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and author of the new book “The Terror Dream: Fear and Fantasy in Post-9/11 America.” She is also the author of “Backlash” and “Stiffed.”
Listen/Watch/Read
Hosted by Juan Gonzalez and Amy Goodman
Democracy Now
In her new book, leading social critic and Pulitzer-winning journalist Susan Faludi examines the cultural impact of the 9/11 attacks and concludes that the United States has been living in a myth since. She explores how the attacks led to the denigration of women here in the United States, the magnification of manly men and the call for greater domesticity. Faludi joins us to talk about the Bush administration's use of feminism to launch the war on Afghanistan, the case of Private Jessica Lynch, the Republican W. Stands for Women campaign, and more.
...
Susan Faludi. Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and author of the new book “The Terror Dream: Fear and Fantasy in Post-9/11 America.” She is also the author of “Backlash” and “Stiffed.”
Listen/Watch/Read
Edward Copeland: Those Who Don't Learn From History...
Those Who Don't Learn From History
by Edward Copeland
While The War, the latest epic documentary by Ken Burns (along with his co-director and co-producer Lynn Novick and writer Geoffrey C. Ward) has garnered mostly (and deservedly) rhapsodic reviews, I noticed a recurring theme in much of the criticism. Many writers keep pointing out how much of the material in his look back at America's involvement in World War II has been covered before, both in fiction and nonfiction forms. That is true, but a lot of The War is fresh and, more importantly, informative. While I'm no WWII expert, I do know a lot of what happened through various sources, yet I still learned a lot from this seven-part, nearly 16 hours-long work. What's tragic is that the people who probably most need to see it probably never will and while The War reminded me of things I knew (or had forgotten) and informed me of things I didn't, most often I kept thinking about how many Americans are ignorant of the facts about this and many other parts of history that they should know about. In an interview, Burns said one of the things that prompted him to embark on this project was learning that a sizable number of American students believed the U.S. fought alongside Germany in WWII against Russia. If only that were an isolated statistic and that sort of stunning misconception were limited to the young.
Link to the Rest of the Post
by Edward Copeland
While The War, the latest epic documentary by Ken Burns (along with his co-director and co-producer Lynn Novick and writer Geoffrey C. Ward) has garnered mostly (and deservedly) rhapsodic reviews, I noticed a recurring theme in much of the criticism. Many writers keep pointing out how much of the material in his look back at America's involvement in World War II has been covered before, both in fiction and nonfiction forms. That is true, but a lot of The War is fresh and, more importantly, informative. While I'm no WWII expert, I do know a lot of what happened through various sources, yet I still learned a lot from this seven-part, nearly 16 hours-long work. What's tragic is that the people who probably most need to see it probably never will and while The War reminded me of things I knew (or had forgotten) and informed me of things I didn't, most often I kept thinking about how many Americans are ignorant of the facts about this and many other parts of history that they should know about. In an interview, Burns said one of the things that prompted him to embark on this project was learning that a sizable number of American students believed the U.S. fought alongside Germany in WWII against Russia. If only that were an isolated statistic and that sort of stunning misconception were limited to the young.
Link to the Rest of the Post
Wednesday, October 03, 2007
Peter Watkins: The Media Crisis
Having been blown away by the achievement of Peter Watkin's La Commune: Paris 1871 (France: 2000)
the documentary The Universal Clock: The Resistance of Peter Watkins (in particular the theoretical discussions about the problems with the mainstreaming of a monologic form in contemporary audiovisual production) and finally sitting in awe at the sheer insanity of his Punishment Park (USA: 1970) and how it's film "reality" seems so much more imaginable (here in the USA) now than it probably did when it was made (and leads us to ask how did he ever get this made?)
So, with these cinematic experiences, I was excited to hear that Watkins 250+ minute film on the life of August Strindberg, The Freethinker (Sweeden: 1992-1994), is about to be released on DVD (finally)
of course finding it is difficult (I'm still tracking the distributor down), but in the meantime if you haven't heard of Peter Watkins (one of the most important filmmakers and tragically very ignored by the system he challenges--as is to be expected), check out his manifesto "The Media Crisis" (an excerpt is included below from the revised introduction):
FIVE YEARS LATER - THE MEDIA CRISIS - 2007
In 2003, I completed the work on this website. It was subsequently translated into French by my son Patrick, and published as The Media Crisis by Alain Dichant of Homnispheres, in France. Alain is now releasing a new edition of The Media Crisis. The book, and this website, remain essentially unchanged at this time, but the crisis in the audiovisual media has worsened. Few, if any, of the problems I analysed have been addressed by the mass audiovisual media, and the related environmental threat, which I referred to in 2003, has become catastrophic. I hope in this revised introduction to clarify some of the worsening issues...
According to an article in the British press (The Guardian Weekly, Feb. 9-15, 2007), world scientists recently issued their strongest warning to date, that a failure to cut greenhouse gas emissions will bring devastating climate change within a few decades. The final report by an expert UN panel states that average temperatures will likely increase by 4C, and could increase by as much as 6.4C by the end of the century if emissions continue to rise. The forecast is higher than previously estimated, because scientists have discovered that the earth's land and ocean masses are becoming less able to absorb carbon dioxide.
The report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) is written by hundreds of scientists across the world, and has been approved by all governments. It appears that human activity is largely to blame for this current state of affairs. The director of the UN Environment Programme said: “February 2007 may be remembered as the day the question mark was removed from whether people are to blame for climate change.”
This latest information from the media on the global environmental crisis does not, however, mention another crucial question mark - one which is also related to human activity, but which is never discussed publicly: the role of the mass audiovisual media in the current state of affairs.
Society at large still refuses to acknowledge the role of form and process in the delivery and reception of the mass audiovisual (MAVM) output. By this I mean that the language forms structuring the message contained in any film or TV programme, and the entire process (hierarchical or otherwise) of delivery to the public are completely overlooked, and are certainly not debated. In turn, this lack of critical public debate means that over 95% of all MAVM messages delivered to the public are now structured by the Monoform.
- the Monoform is the one single language form now used to edit and structure cinema films, TV programmes - newsbroadcasts, detective series, soap operas, comedy and ‘reality shows’, etc. - and most documentaries, almost all of which are encoded in the standardised and rigid form which had its nascence in the Hollywood cinema. The result is a language form wherein spatial fragmentation, repetitive time rhythms, constantly moving camera, rapid staccato editing, dense bombardment of sound, and lack of silence or reflective space, play a dominant and aggressive role.
- there is total silence within the ranks of the professional MAVM on the impact of this mono language on society in general, and on its relationship to the environmental crisis. The MAVM refuse to discuss this issue either in their films and TV programmes, or in any public debate.
- this silence is further reinforced by the reluctance (to put it mildly) of today’s educational systems to discuss the nature of the MAVM in critical or holistic terms, and especially to analyse the impact of the Monoform. It would even appear as if many of today’s media teachers are hardly aware of, or concerned with, this impact.
- the silence on the role of the MAVM is also maintained by most alternative political movements, associations, NGOs, etc. While sometimes acknowledging that the MAVM may be withholding information (e.g., on the arms race), or that it may, in general terms, have an impact on certain events (e.g., the war in Iraq), alternative movements do not usually hold the MAVM to holistic account for its overall impact on society, nor for its direct relationship to the environmental disaster.
- finally, the silence on the media crisis is sustained at, and by, most major international ‘public’ MAVM events such as film festivals, documentary film forums, and the escalating number of specialist TV festivals, trade fairs, and so-called ‘world congresses’. These events play a central role in the media crisis because they are structured in such a way as to preclude meaningful debate with the public, and instead, reinforce the mindless absorption of torrents of Monoform material. Major festivals pack as many as 200-300 films into 4-5 days of screenings, often obliging viewers to run to and from the sessions. Inserted into these events are authoritarian panel ‘discussions’ by experts, master classes with celebrity filmmakers, and pitching sessions. Rarely, however, are there any discussions with the public about the role of the MAVM in contemporary society - and never is there any mention of the Monoform.
These international events, mostly unknown to the public, more than anything else represent the global market forces industry that the MAVM have become.
To Read the Rest of Watkin's Statement--also see links on the left hand side
French Version
Sections include:
1. Media Crisis - Suggestions for use and Personal Prologue
2. Revised Introduction to the Media Crisis
3. The role of the American MAVM, Hollywood and the Monoform
4. The European, Canadian, Scandinavian (etc.) MAVM
5. Media education, popular culture, violence
6. Filmmakers, festivals and the repression
7. Role of the Global Justice Movement
8. Public-alternative processes and practices
9. Conclusion
Online Resources for Studying Media Culture/Texts
This is an archive for writing students that are researching media culture and pupular culture papers. To the students these are all resources that I have chosen to demonstrate what I think are academic sources available online--so think about why the site is chosen: verifiable source/author of the materials; able to identify the worldview/framework/discipline of the organiztion/collective/individual; quality of the materials--my and your judgment; archive of other visual sources (for instance the Gender Ads site). Remember this is just some prompts that can get you "started."
Here are some beginning sites:
What is a What is a Thesis Statement?
Washington State University: American Popular Culture
Media Literacy Clearinghouse
Critical Media Studies
How to write a film paper:
British Film Institute: Film Researching Resources These are actually teaching resources but very useful for researching papers. BFI is one of the most respected film organizations; a resource for schools/colleges in the UK; they publish many books and the excellent film magazine "Sight and Sound."
Film Analysis Resources This incredible site is hosted by Yale University Film Studies department
Viewing and Watching Film Critically I'm not sure who Tim Dirks is but the materials covered here are either straight-forward understandings of concepts, some genre analysis on other pages, and links to other sites. It helps that this site has received commendations from other trusted sources (like the film critic Roger Ebert)
More films studies resources from Yale Library
Advertising Issues:
Gender Ads Resources for Dr. Scott A. Lukas' Gender courses as well as his introductory social science courses at Lake Tahoe Community College and Valparaiso University. Extensive website, with huge archives of primary and secondary sources.
Gender, Race and Ethnicity in Media Advertising University of Iowa's Communication Studies dept. has compiled this huge archive of links.
How to Read an Ad Dr. Scott A' Lukas put this together.
Gender Advertiosements Aimed at African Americans Originally published in the journal Sex Roles: A Journal of Research (Jan, 1999)
Female Gender Images in Adolescent Magazine Advertising Originally published in Australian Marketing Journal (11.1: 2003)
About-Face: Body Activism "About-Face's mission is to equip women and girls with tools to understand and resist the harmful stereotypes of women the media disseminates. There are three components to About-Face's program, Education into Action: media-literacy workshops, action groups, and this resource-filled web site. About-Face is based in San Francisco, California. Our workshops and action groups reach throughout the San Francisco Bay Area. Our web site, of course, is available the world over." This website includes many primary (the actual ads) and secondary sources (intepretative/evaluative resources).
A Sociological Analysis of Children's Television Advertising Put together by two senior sociology majors at St. Lawrence University in NY.
Popular Culture: Advertising
From Washtington State University's American Popular Culture Archive.
The Persuaders PBS Frontline documentary hosted by media theorist Douglas Rushkoff; includes many other resources.
Merchants of Cool PBS Frontline documentary hosted by media theorist Douglas Rushkoff; includes many other resources.
Reading Advertisements Newsweek Magazine Education
The Language of Advertising Claims John Padgett's University of Mississippi guide for his ENG 102 course.
The Language of Advertising Peter Sells and Sierra Gonzale on the Stanford University Website.
Adbusters' Spoof Ads Canadian magazine that is a center of culture jamming.
Tobacco Spoof Ads
Analysis of Advertisements (Daniel Chandler's semiotic guide to understanding ads)
Beauty and Body Image in the Media (Media Awareness Network guide)
The Devil Wears Prada:
Story Analysis of the Film
Sympathy for the She Devil Salon magazine article.
Fairy Tales:
Wikipedia: Fairy Tales Wikipedia is an online collection of articles which is authored and edited by many people (and includes critiques of the pieces when someone finds the objectionable/misleading). Should be used solely as a guide to thinking about a broad subject/theme, followed by your own research.
Fair Tales, Myths and Legends Francie Quaas-Berryman's for her Cerritos College ENG 100 courses
Fairy Tales and Script Analysis Very academic analysis mapping the structure of fairy tales.
Fairy Tales A. Waller Hastings's website for his students.
Theory & Method Written by Kevin Yee and hosted by Disney. Good intro to the various theories/methods used to analyze fairy tales.
Psychoanalysis and Fairy Tales Hosted by the Romanian Association of Pyschoanalysis--intro to this theoretical perspective.
Artist: Alex Grey
The Artwork of Alex Grey His personal/professional website.
The Visionary Art of Alex Grey
Alex Grey on YouTube
Alex Grey: Art and Spirit (an interview)
Alex Grey: Art, Love, Family, and Psychedelics
Marketing of Diet Pills/Prescription Drugs
Medicating Kids PBS Frontline documentary available online and more resources.
Diet Wars Frontline documentary.
Prescription Drug Ad Marketing Media Literacy Clearinghouse
Prescription Drugs: Concerns and Controversies of Direct-to-Consumer Advertisements Article posted at the American Medical Student Association site--originally published in Cornell Political Forum (May 1998)
Pornography:
American Porn PBS Frontline documentary online and more resources.
History of Sex in Cinema
Barbie Dolls:
Barbie Liberation Culture Jammers subverting Barbie and GI Joe.
Barbie Liberation Organization
Wikipedia: Barbie
War Movies
War and Anti-War Films Film Site overview of the genres.
Wikipedia: War Films
How to Evaluate War Movies and Questions to Help You Evaluate War Films and War is Hell Pass the Popcorn Center for Media Literacy
Remind me I have essays on this subject that I hand out to my film classes.
Music Piracy/Downloading Issues:
Recording Industry Association of America statement about piracy
American Federation of Musicians statement on music piracy
MUSIC PIRACY AND THE AUDIO HOME RECORDING ACT Duke Law and Technology Review (2002)
Is Music Piracy Stealing? Applelinks
‘Golden Age of Free Music’ vs ‘Copying is Stealing’ Published at The Register (2003)
The Music Piracy Myth Tim O' Reilly is founder and CEO of O'Reilly Media a computer book publishing company.
Music Piracy Defendents Fighting Back The National Law Journal (2005)
Cultures of Music Piracy International Jouirnal of Cultural Studies (2004)
Celebrity Culture:
Wikipedia: Celebrity Culture
World History Site: Dysfunctional Celebrities
Media and Rise of Celebrity Culture Amy Henderson is a historian at the National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution. First published in OAH Magazine of History 6 (Spring 1992)
The Culture Celebrity Essay by Joseph Epstein in the Weekly Standard. Good introduction to some of the people writing and thinking about it.
Hypertrophic Celebrity MC Journal (2004)
The Culture of Celebrity: An Annotated Bibliography Compiled byy students at the College of New Jersey. Very helpful!
Alcohol Advertising:
Yahoo Collection of Alcohol Ads
Alcohol Advertising and Youth Also visit the main site of The Center on Alcohol Marketing and Youth at Georgetown University
Stanford University online collection of 55 Alcohol Ads
SUNY Potsdam University: Alcohol Advertising
Analyszing Alcohol Advertisements and Marketing Frank Baker for Media Literacy Clearinghouse
Alcohol Advertising and Youth Marin Institute
Wikipedia: Alcohol Advertising
Adbusters: Spoof Ads Has a section spoofing/critiquing alcohol ads.
Online Communities:
Wikipedia: Social Network
Social Networking Blog Survey of the culture online
Howard Rheingold New Media theorist
Smart Mobs Website inspired by Rheingold's book.
Taking the "You" Out of YouTube Critique by media theorist Henry Jenkins.
Who Profits from User Created Content By Rheingold
DIY Media Weblog Hosted by the USC Annenberg Center
Wikipedia: Virtual Community
Online Community Toolkits Full Circle Associates--a consulting group.
News/Journalism Issues
Columbia Journalism Review Important magazine that covers the world of journalism
The News War PBS Frontline documentary available online and more resources.
Critical Media Studies: Journalism Resources
Project Censored An essential archival guide to the major news stories that are regularly censored or ignored by mainstream/corporate media news agencies. They do an annual collection of the year's top 25 censored news stories. Check out the 2007 edition and the archive of of past annual reports They also have a good archive of Alternative News Sources available online
Wikipedia: Topics in Journalism
Propaganda:
Propaganda Critic Very useful guide to the basic concepts from The Institute for Propaganda Analysis.
Public Relations (PR) Watch and SourceWatch and Public Relations Industry and Propaganda Techniques and Propaganda Hosted by the Center for Media and Democracy
Wikipedia: Propaganda
Nancy Snow Leading critic of the American cultural and political propaganda techniques used worldwide. Check out her Ten Things Everyone Should Know About Propaganda and Propaganda News
Propaganda, Pop Culture and Public Diplomacy
More Critical Resources
Orwell Rolls in His Grave
Cultural Intelligence and Social Control
Impropaganda
Freud’s Nephew and the Origin of Public Relations
Using Story as Strategy/Politics of Storytelling
On "Deceit"
The Role of the Mass Media
Do We Need a Strong Public Media
Language/Politics/Composition
Here are some beginning sites:
What is a What is a Thesis Statement?
Washington State University: American Popular Culture
Media Literacy Clearinghouse
Critical Media Studies
How to write a film paper:
British Film Institute: Film Researching Resources These are actually teaching resources but very useful for researching papers. BFI is one of the most respected film organizations; a resource for schools/colleges in the UK; they publish many books and the excellent film magazine "Sight and Sound."
Film Analysis Resources This incredible site is hosted by Yale University Film Studies department
Viewing and Watching Film Critically I'm not sure who Tim Dirks is but the materials covered here are either straight-forward understandings of concepts, some genre analysis on other pages, and links to other sites. It helps that this site has received commendations from other trusted sources (like the film critic Roger Ebert)
More films studies resources from Yale Library
Advertising Issues:
Gender Ads Resources for Dr. Scott A. Lukas' Gender courses as well as his introductory social science courses at Lake Tahoe Community College and Valparaiso University. Extensive website, with huge archives of primary and secondary sources.
Gender, Race and Ethnicity in Media Advertising University of Iowa's Communication Studies dept. has compiled this huge archive of links.
How to Read an Ad Dr. Scott A' Lukas put this together.
Gender Advertiosements Aimed at African Americans Originally published in the journal Sex Roles: A Journal of Research (Jan, 1999)
Female Gender Images in Adolescent Magazine Advertising Originally published in Australian Marketing Journal (11.1: 2003)
About-Face: Body Activism "About-Face's mission is to equip women and girls with tools to understand and resist the harmful stereotypes of women the media disseminates. There are three components to About-Face's program, Education into Action: media-literacy workshops, action groups, and this resource-filled web site. About-Face is based in San Francisco, California. Our workshops and action groups reach throughout the San Francisco Bay Area. Our web site, of course, is available the world over." This website includes many primary (the actual ads) and secondary sources (intepretative/evaluative resources).
A Sociological Analysis of Children's Television Advertising Put together by two senior sociology majors at St. Lawrence University in NY.
Popular Culture: Advertising
From Washtington State University's American Popular Culture Archive.
The Persuaders PBS Frontline documentary hosted by media theorist Douglas Rushkoff; includes many other resources.
Merchants of Cool PBS Frontline documentary hosted by media theorist Douglas Rushkoff; includes many other resources.
Reading Advertisements Newsweek Magazine Education
The Language of Advertising Claims John Padgett's University of Mississippi guide for his ENG 102 course.
The Language of Advertising Peter Sells and Sierra Gonzale on the Stanford University Website.
Adbusters' Spoof Ads Canadian magazine that is a center of culture jamming.
Tobacco Spoof Ads
Analysis of Advertisements (Daniel Chandler's semiotic guide to understanding ads)
Beauty and Body Image in the Media (Media Awareness Network guide)
The Devil Wears Prada:
Story Analysis of the Film
Sympathy for the She Devil Salon magazine article.
Fairy Tales:
Wikipedia: Fairy Tales Wikipedia is an online collection of articles which is authored and edited by many people (and includes critiques of the pieces when someone finds the objectionable/misleading). Should be used solely as a guide to thinking about a broad subject/theme, followed by your own research.
Fair Tales, Myths and Legends Francie Quaas-Berryman's for her Cerritos College ENG 100 courses
Fairy Tales and Script Analysis Very academic analysis mapping the structure of fairy tales.
Fairy Tales A. Waller Hastings's website for his students.
Theory & Method Written by Kevin Yee and hosted by Disney. Good intro to the various theories/methods used to analyze fairy tales.
Psychoanalysis and Fairy Tales Hosted by the Romanian Association of Pyschoanalysis--intro to this theoretical perspective.
Artist: Alex Grey
The Artwork of Alex Grey His personal/professional website.
The Visionary Art of Alex Grey
Alex Grey on YouTube
Alex Grey: Art and Spirit (an interview)
Alex Grey: Art, Love, Family, and Psychedelics
Marketing of Diet Pills/Prescription Drugs
Medicating Kids PBS Frontline documentary available online and more resources.
Diet Wars Frontline documentary.
Prescription Drug Ad Marketing Media Literacy Clearinghouse
Prescription Drugs: Concerns and Controversies of Direct-to-Consumer Advertisements Article posted at the American Medical Student Association site--originally published in Cornell Political Forum (May 1998)
Pornography:
American Porn PBS Frontline documentary online and more resources.
History of Sex in Cinema
Barbie Dolls:
Barbie Liberation Culture Jammers subverting Barbie and GI Joe.
Barbie Liberation Organization
Wikipedia: Barbie
War Movies
War and Anti-War Films Film Site overview of the genres.
Wikipedia: War Films
How to Evaluate War Movies and Questions to Help You Evaluate War Films and War is Hell Pass the Popcorn Center for Media Literacy
Remind me I have essays on this subject that I hand out to my film classes.
Music Piracy/Downloading Issues:
Recording Industry Association of America statement about piracy
American Federation of Musicians statement on music piracy
MUSIC PIRACY AND THE AUDIO HOME RECORDING ACT Duke Law and Technology Review (2002)
Is Music Piracy Stealing? Applelinks
‘Golden Age of Free Music’ vs ‘Copying is Stealing’ Published at The Register (2003)
The Music Piracy Myth Tim O' Reilly is founder and CEO of O'Reilly Media a computer book publishing company.
Music Piracy Defendents Fighting Back The National Law Journal (2005)
Cultures of Music Piracy International Jouirnal of Cultural Studies (2004)
Celebrity Culture:
Wikipedia: Celebrity Culture
World History Site: Dysfunctional Celebrities
Media and Rise of Celebrity Culture Amy Henderson is a historian at the National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution. First published in OAH Magazine of History 6 (Spring 1992)
The Culture Celebrity Essay by Joseph Epstein in the Weekly Standard. Good introduction to some of the people writing and thinking about it.
Hypertrophic Celebrity MC Journal (2004)
The Culture of Celebrity: An Annotated Bibliography Compiled byy students at the College of New Jersey. Very helpful!
Alcohol Advertising:
Yahoo Collection of Alcohol Ads
Alcohol Advertising and Youth Also visit the main site of The Center on Alcohol Marketing and Youth at Georgetown University
Stanford University online collection of 55 Alcohol Ads
SUNY Potsdam University: Alcohol Advertising
Analyszing Alcohol Advertisements and Marketing Frank Baker for Media Literacy Clearinghouse
Alcohol Advertising and Youth Marin Institute
Wikipedia: Alcohol Advertising
Adbusters: Spoof Ads Has a section spoofing/critiquing alcohol ads.
Online Communities:
Wikipedia: Social Network
Social Networking Blog Survey of the culture online
Howard Rheingold New Media theorist
Smart Mobs Website inspired by Rheingold's book.
Taking the "You" Out of YouTube Critique by media theorist Henry Jenkins.
Who Profits from User Created Content By Rheingold
DIY Media Weblog Hosted by the USC Annenberg Center
Wikipedia: Virtual Community
Online Community Toolkits Full Circle Associates--a consulting group.
News/Journalism Issues
Columbia Journalism Review Important magazine that covers the world of journalism
The News War PBS Frontline documentary available online and more resources.
Critical Media Studies: Journalism Resources
Project Censored An essential archival guide to the major news stories that are regularly censored or ignored by mainstream/corporate media news agencies. They do an annual collection of the year's top 25 censored news stories. Check out the 2007 edition and the archive of of past annual reports They also have a good archive of Alternative News Sources available online
Wikipedia: Topics in Journalism
Propaganda:
Propaganda Critic Very useful guide to the basic concepts from The Institute for Propaganda Analysis.
Public Relations (PR) Watch and SourceWatch and Public Relations Industry and Propaganda Techniques and Propaganda Hosted by the Center for Media and Democracy
Wikipedia: Propaganda
Nancy Snow Leading critic of the American cultural and political propaganda techniques used worldwide. Check out her Ten Things Everyone Should Know About Propaganda and Propaganda News
Propaganda, Pop Culture and Public Diplomacy
More Critical Resources
Orwell Rolls in His Grave
Cultural Intelligence and Social Control
Impropaganda
Freud’s Nephew and the Origin of Public Relations
Using Story as Strategy/Politics of Storytelling
On "Deceit"
The Role of the Mass Media
Do We Need a Strong Public Media
Language/Politics/Composition
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