....LMB: "Chutzpah"....

August 14, 2002

Jesus, what balls!

There's a mildly humorous saying that "the definition of chutzpah is a child who murders his parents and then pleads for the mercy of the court because he's an orphan."

These ex-Enron execs also define the word. The company went bankrupt because they ran it into the ground. They were fired for their actions, and now they want to collect their multi-million dollar severance packages (a federal investigation also revealed today that, as we've all known for a while, Enron manipulated energy prices for profit).

It's times like these when I wonder why we don't tar and feather these motherfuckers.

That probably sounds like I'm kidding. I'm not. These men don't fear the law. Let them fear angry mob justice. Let them realize that despite their money and power, that they can feel the force of a fist just like any other man. And let them realize that there are many, many fists that would love to prove that fact, time and time again.

Instead, they walk around with impunity, flaunting the riches they've gained through clever, "legal" theft.

They should FEAR us.

They should spend every waking moment drenched in cold sweat, knowing that we are much more powerful than they are, and we could take back what's ours without warning.

We could eat them alive.

[Jake takes off 'revolutionary zealot' hat, puts on sly, good-natured Mark Twain mustache]

And if we tar and feather these corporate bastards instead of beating or lynching them, they walk away humiliated, but physically unharmed. Mostly.

This was America's birth. About a year ago, I read a good book called A People's History of the American Revolution (no, not the Zinn book, but one inspired by it). What amazed me was how rebellious and militant these American colonists were against those who abused their economic or political power. When these abuses were too much to bear, throngs of people would go to the home of a politician, scare him half to death with threats and burning effigies, and force him to resign. When merchants raised prices past the breaking point, the masses would break in, take what they needed, sometimes leaving what they considered a fair price for the goods they had taken. And of course, those seen as traitors would sometimes be brushed with warm tar and sprinkled with goose feathers.

Yeah, I know, the idea of mob justice raises just as many problems as it could potentially solve. But you've got to admit, there is something attractive about the idea.

Posted by Jake at 12:15 AM
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Lying Media Bastards is both a radio show and website. The show airs Mondays 2-4pm PST on KillRadio.org, and couples excellent music with angry news commentary. And the website, well, you're looking at it.

Both projects focus on our media-marinated world, political lies, corporate tyranny, and the folks fighting the good fight against these monsters.

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Media News

November 16, 2004

Tales of Media Woe

Senate May Ram Copyright Bill- one of the most depressing stories of the day that didn't involve death or bombs. It's the music and movie industries' wet dream. It criminalizes peer-to-peer software makers, allows the government to file civil lawsuits on behalf of these media industries, and eliminates fair use. Fair use is the idea that I can use a snippet of a copyrighted work for educational, political, or satirical purposes, without getting permission from the copyright-holder first.

And most tellingly, the bill legalizes technology that would automatically skip over "obejctionable content" (i.e. sex and violence) in a DVD, but bans devices that would automatically skip over commericals. This is a blatant, blatant, blatant gift to the movie industry. Fuck the movie industry, fuck the music industry, fuck the Senate.

Music industry aims to send in radio cops- the recording industry says that you're not allowed to record songs off the radio, be it real radio or internet radio. And now they're working on preventing you from recording songs off internet radio through a mixture of law and technological repression (although I imagine their techno-fixes will get hacked pretty quickly).

The shocking truth about the FCC: Censorship by the tyranny of the few- blogger Jeff Jarvis discovers that the recent $1.2 million FCC fine against a sex scene in Fox's "Married By America" TV show was not levied because hundreds of people wrote the FCC and complained. It was not because 159 people wrote in and complained (which is the FCC's current rationale). No, thanks to Jarvis' FOIA request, we find that only 23 people (of the show's several million viewers) wrote in and complained. On top of that, he finds that 21 of those letters were just copy-and-paste email jobs that some people attached their names to. Jarvis then spins this a bit by saying that "only 3" people actually wrote letters to the FCC, which is misleading but technically true. So somewhere between 3 and 23 angry people can determine what you can't see on television. Good to know.

Reuters Union Considers Striking Over Layoffs- will a strike by such a major newswire service impact the rest of the world's media?

Pentagon Starts Work On War Internet- the US military is talking about the creation of a global, wireless, satellite-aided computer network for use in battle. I think I saw a movie about this once...

Conservative host returns to the air after week suspension for using racial slur- Houston radio talk show host (and somtime Rush Limbaugh substitute) Mark Belling referred to Mexican-Americans as "wetbacks" on his show. He was suspended for a couple of weeks, and then submitted a written apology for the racial slur to a local newspaper. But he seems to be using the slur and its surrounding controversy to boost his conservative cred with his listeners.

Stay Tuned for Nudes- Cleveland TV news anchor Sharon Reed aired a story about artist Spencer Tunick, who uses large numbers of naked volunteers in his installations and photographs. The news report will be unique in that it will not blur or black-out the usual naughty bits. The story will air late at night, when it's allegedly okay with the FCC if you broadcast "indecent" material. The author of this article doesn't seem to notice that Reed first claims that this report is a publicity stunt, but then claims it's a protest against FCC repression. I'd like to think it's the latter, but I'm not that much of a sucker.

Posted by Jake at 04:02 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack (0)
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Jake's first attempt at homemade Mongolican barbecue:

Failure.

What went right: correctly guessing several key seasonings- lemon, ginger, soy, garlic, chili.

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Result: not entirely edible.

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