....LMB: "News Vittles"....

July 08, 2004

Incarceration, Inc.- private, for-profit prisons. When you first hear the concept, it sounds like a bad idea. But when you start digging and looking at the reality, you see that it really is a bad idea.

The Truth About the Drug Companies- private, for-profit pharmaceutical companies. When you first hear the concept-- just stick the last article's joke here.

You Are How You Eat- your standard "common sense vs. stupid diet trends" article, but its a point that really needs to be made a lot of times. If you're overweight, maybe a healthier diet and exercise are a better plan than cutting an entire food group from your menu.

Women Stage Breast-Feeding Protest at Mall- "Chanting 'Got milk,' 50 mothers staged a protest 'nurse-in' at a Houston shopping mall after one of them said security guards asked her to cover herself or move on while breast-feeding her 4-month-old son." Rock.

Do [East Valley] anarchists pose terror threat?- a somewhat in-depth and slightly sympathetic about American anarchists. Law enforcement these days lumps together anarchists and terrorists without a second thought, harassing and arresting them. I keep thinking of that quote about the Holocaust by Martin Niemoller: "First they came for the Communists, and I didn’t speak up, because I wasn’t a Communist. Then they came for the Jews, and I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a Jew..."

Almost Six Months Later, Aftershock of Strike Still Felt in Small Town- interesting article about a failed 2003 strike in a small Wisconsin town, and the effects that the strike and its settlement have had on the people who live there.

The Dark Side of Ralph Nader- since Nader's presidential run in 2000, I've always heard rumors that despite his principled opinions, that in his private dealings, that Nader has engaged in union-busting and owns corporate stock and antagonizes his workers. No one's ever really given me any evidence to substantiate those claims though. This article does give some evidence that Nader treats some of his employees like shit. Overall, it paints a picture of Nader as a hard-working progressive who is harder on his friends than on his enemies, and who will let personal vindictiveness overcome all else. Can't verify it, and don't particularly care to, but it's an intriguing read.

FEMA worker ordered home- long story short, a couple went to a pro-Bush rally at the North Carolina state capitol, and were arrested for wearing anti-Bush t-shirts. Of course, the police claim that the couple were arrested for "trespassing."

Posted by Jake at 04:46 PM | TrackBack (0)
Comments

That breastfeeding protest...wasn't that an episode of 'Married with Children'? It worked though. There was media coverage locally and the mall ended up saying it was all a misunderstanding....right.

Posted by: Indira at July 8, 2004 07:59 PM

I wonder what happened to the Lawyer in New York who was arrested in a mall for wearing a "peace" t-shirt (not anti-war ... pro-peace) back before the Iraq war?

Posted by: Woody at July 9, 2004 12:04 PM

Breast feeding protest - it did get lots of coverage - but apparently the Galleria doesn't even have a policy against it - just an overzealous security guard.

Posted by: Terence at July 9, 2004 05:25 PM
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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.

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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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