Entries Tagged as 'trusted media & news'

books & writingtrusted media & news

“Avengers Assemble” #1: Mainstream comics creators really have no idea what’s going on anymore.

Have you heard about the new “Avengers Assemble” #1? On March 13, USA Today had a big preview that is sure to whet your appetite for… well, um, more of the same. At least, if the cover is to be believed:

Obviously the first question when looking at this stupid image is, Why is Captain America leaping off from Hulk’s crotch? Hulk has a super crotch, I’m sure, so it would take a lot to injure him, but Captain America has super feet, so there’s still a chance for injury.

The second question is, Haven’t I already seen this image before, about a million times already, including within the last year, on a comic book that made national headlines? [Read more →]

on the lawrace & culture

Justice for Trayvon Martin

There has been a spark in Florida. Whether it proves igniting depends on the condition and volume of the available fuel. It has been hot and dry across the nation for some time so we should be cautious with cigarette butts and any other sort of burning. In that case, maybe Al Sharpton should have stayed home. Too late for that now. He has broken out the tropical suits and the high-humidity hair treaments. Rev Sharpton has been one of the leading voices championing Justice for Tayvon as this movement is aptly known, calling for patience and support for the Martin family as they brace for the possibly imminent arrest of their son.  [Read more →]

family & parentingtrusted media & news

Are you frightened by the frighteningly commonplace Choking Game epidemic? You should be — just look at the numbers

Today, Yahoo had a link on their main page to an alarming Time story about an alarming trend — actually, it’s more like an epidemic! — of children (who are our future and our most precious resource) asphyxiating themselves in an effort to achieve a “high,” to just feel something in this callously dull world. This deadly dangerous activity goes by many names, but the most alarming by far is “The Choking Game,” and only the most naive among you don’t believe it’s already infected your community.

Researchers at The Crime Victims’ Institute at Sam Houston State University surveyed 837 students at a Texas university and found that the behavior, which works by cutting off blood flow to the brain in order to induce a high, was frighteningly commonplace:

•16% of students said they’d played the game, and three-quarters more than once
•On average, students first played the game at age 14
•Males were more likely to have played than females
•90% of students who had played the game learned about it from friends, and most students said they first played in a group

16% of a group of 837 students at one Texas University might have choked or hyperventilated themselves at some point in the past. And three-quarters of those might have done it twice!

That is “frighteningly commonplace” (by the way, emphasis added, because, see below)! That’s practically everybody!

It turns out that The Choking Game is a crisis that media outlets have been trying to manufacture for some time. With limited success, because today was the first I’d ever heard of it — now, of course, I’m panicked. [Read more →]

race & culturetrusted media & news

The Amazing Race

In December of 2010 my car was stolen from a packed pay lot on a Thursday afternoon. The cops thought it a routine event, and to them it was. The sentiment was that most likely it would turn up in a day or so, probably that very evening. As it happened it was a couple weeks before it was identified, chased and destroyed as a result. The offender, a Marcus Jones, 24 years old, drove my Jeep squarely into a light pole and grabbed his girlfriend’s five month old daughter to use as a human shield, leaving the mother at the scene with an impressive cache of marijuana and cocaine. He was apprehended but claimed to be an innocent bystander who had picked up the abandoned baby on this night of icy, driving winds. That diversion failed, as did his first attempt at legal defense. He told the court he was hearing voices. The State shrinks called BS on that. He complains that he is suicidally depressed, as well he may be, now facing some twenty charges including kidnapping and the considerable weight to his conscience added by the fact that the child in question is permanently paralyzed from her injuries and facing her second birthday in a few months’ time. Monday morning he will either plead guilty and receive his sentence or plead not guilty and receive a trial. I will attend. The grave nature of the baby’s injuries have been reported in no media I can find. A functionary of the Atlanta prosecutors’ office told me of the sad fact while informing me of the court date and their desire for my presence to add, however sparsely, to the bill of atrocities laid on this career criminal. All the parties involved, probably including the judge, are black.  [Read more →]

moneytrusted media & news

Deaf man talking

As the vast majority of Americans have never been polled, so the vast majority of Americans have never made their viewing or listening habits public knowledge through the ratings systems. In radio there is Arbitron and in TV, the Nielsens. The politicians and their staffs live and die by the polls as the professional talkers go on air and off by the ratings, just ask Keith Olberman (if you can find him). The dealers in brouhaha, have a moist, delicious controversy on their plates. The most coveted delicacy, a Rush of Limbaugh seems to be within reach of their forks, knives and fingers. Who could expect them not to tuck in? The implements for cracking the shell and exposing the delicious Limbaugh underneath are many but one is foremost. The ratings and for the same reason Willie Sutton robbed banks and Mitt Romney is hurtling towards Washington; it’s where the money is.

A Cenk Uygur is on the case. Heck, they all are, but this character who could not reveal his Easter Island head in public if we didn’t know where Mohammed Atta is, shows up foremost on Bing. Statistically you are unlikely to know the name as this Delta smelt of media barely registered in the ratings system when he was on MSNBC of which you may also be blissfully ignorant. The Young Turk has landed on his feet after being replaced by Al Sharpton. He has, like Olberman and Algore, carved out a place for himself on the internets at CurrenTV, from which perch he assails Limbaugh’s much vaunted audience claims as phony-baloney, plastic banana, good-time rock ‘n roller codswallop. Since this is an attempt at media nose-punching we should weigh in the contenders. Uygur asserts that he and Limbaugh may well be in the same class. He refers us to his youtube channel where, at my viewing, nearly all the vids have almost exactly 300 pageviews with one exception. His manly challenge to Rush has ten thousand. [Read more →]

politics & governmenttrusted media & news

Andrew Breitbart 1969-2012

terror & wartrusted media & news

The AP uses high quality journalism to prove that you needn’t worry about drones

The United States of America, the world’s greatest force for good, has lately been using drones to bomb the crap out of Muslims in the Middle East. Drones are especially convenient tools because they are light, maneuverable, and unmanned. The government — the government that works for me, and you (if you’re an American), and does what it does for your benefit — has only increased the number of drones it’s used in those areas in which it is fighting kinetic military actions.

Some people have expressed concern that these drones that we’re using to bomb the crap out of Muslims aren’t only hitting those that our government has deemed to be the *bad* ones. Official numbers are difficult to come by, because they don’t exist, but some have estimated that, well, a significant number of innocent, non-terrorist Muslims, have been killed in drone strikes.

Well, the Associated Press has used some impressive journalism to discover that those people are full of beans. [Read more →]

terror & wartravel & foreign lands

Notes on the Landscapes Spotted in the Backgrounds of News Reports

Recently I started a daily ritual of watching Euronews after dinner. I’m not sure why I find the channel so absorbing, as when I actually lived in Europe I found it incredibly dull. And not dull in a smug, irritating BBC way but just… soul-crushingly boring, as is characteristic of anything that begins with the chilling prefix “Euro-”. Perhaps it’s only now, after years spent in a land where the news is delivered exclusively by pompous, Botoxed egomaniacs that I can appreciate the channel’s relatively understated style. Or then again, maybe I’m just digging the stuff I can see in the backgrounds. [Read more →]

travel & foreign landstrusted media & news

A Young Person’s Guide to Russian Politics

 

Following the recent street protests in Russia, international attention has been focused on the country’s political scene. A young person tuning in to the news coverage might be confused by all the long names ending with –ov and –sky, and the series of heads that resemble slabs of meat, lumpy potatoes or some other comestible. Too much of the commentary is targeted at initiates; beginners need a jumping on point. After all, today’s 20 year olds were barely crawling the last time Vladimir Zhirinovsky scored serious headlines in the West. So strap on your shapka and let’s go! [Read more →]

politics & governmenttrusted media & news

Willardworld

They say it is over. “They” is the Romnoids. But they have been saying it was over before it ever began. Now Newt, bedraggled and forlorn, seems to be in sullen agreement or at least he is not up to energetic resistance, which amounts to agreement. If we needed any more evidence that Newt has a half-life, a shelf-life and an inner-life inconsistent with the rigors of the Presidency, this is it. It seems Newt had begun to believe his own press. Santorum took a much harsher beating but unlike Newt, it was what he expected. Unshocked, he and his 13% will march on. If Newt were an ordinary party loyalist, he would back Mitt immediately hoping for Commerce Secretary to the detriment of the party and the nation. It seems he might be infantile enough though to consider his dignity over his advancement; always the calculation. If Gingrich can demonstrate a weak pulse and continue harrowing Romney it will be the finest service he could ever perform for the nation (and Rick Santorum), not that Newt should gain the office. Romney is the great threat at the moment and the Gingrich Blunderbuss is the only plausible weapon at hand but the powder, while voluminous, has grown damp in the Florida humidity. What if Mitt has succeeded, as of yesterday, to make his nomination a done deal? [Read more →]

politics & governmenttrusted media & news

You can do it, South Carolina — strike a blow for the political class

The New York Times opinion page is chock full of benignant thinkers. It’s a roster of such great intellectual depth that, to be honest, I always feel like I’m missing something every time I read them. The lineup is so impressive that it’s difficult to decide exactly which one of them is the most special, but David Brooks recently made a strong case for himself when he made the following important observation about politics and the government:

Sunshinism is a destructive ideology. Forcing people to financially undress in public is just one of those incursions that repels decent people from running for office.

It also destroys people’s faith in government. Have you noticed that as democracy has become more open, cynicism has skyrocketed and the effectiveness of government has gone down the toilet? Bill Galston of the Brookings Institution has the best observation on this — that parts of government should be hidden for the same reason middle-aged people should wear clothes.

[Read more →]

politics & governmenttrusted media & news

Fact checking Republican presidential candidate speeches from the New Hampshire primary

This election season is arguably the most important, and most recent, in history. I have noticed that a lot of statements are being made by the presidential candidates. A lot of these statements are indisputably unfactual, and I know this because I am a fact checker.

Today, more than ever, with candidates making more and more statements, the role of a fact checker such as myself is undeniable. For instance, when a candidate makes a statement, I will fact-check it. I am taking on this monumental task myself and lucky for you that I am, because these candidates are really saying things.

I take this important role seriously. I will offer unbiased, unpartisan fact checking. All I am looking for is facts to check, and when I find them, I will check them. Without bias, because an informed electorate is arguably an important thing. So I will begin by fact checking statements made by Republican presidential candidates in their New Hampshire primary speeches last night. [Read more →]

politics & governmenttrusted media & news

Game On

politics & governmenttrusted media & news

Future editorial: Let not the reactionaries prevent passage of the Human Enhancement Act

FUTURE EDITORIAL: LET NOT THE REACTIONARIES PREVENT PASSAGE OF THE HUMAN ENHANCEMENT ACT

By Thomauridas Krugolliniedowdfried

For all the overhot rhetoric flourish coming from certain counterfeit parties, this Thomauridas Krugolliniedowdfried will show that the Human Enhancement Act recently proposed by SenReps Chuck Schumer-4 of MicroSoft, and John McCain-PrimeBeta of Atlanta Braves is actually a quite modest plan whose benefits would be felt by everyone in the 34 Congloms, and around the world.

Please let this Thomauridas Krugolliniedowdfried spell this out for you in this New Bloomberg Telemex Times editorial: Our Conglomeration of States has struggled with an epidemic of obesity, and other preventable behavioral-based diseases. Our ruling class politicians and other moral and spiritual leaders have long been sounding the alarm over the fact that this is a national security issue, as the bodies that citizens often selfishly believe belong only to themselves are being abused to the point that they are often of no use to our national decision-makers. [Read more →]

politics & governmenttrusted media & news

Gary Johnson goes Libertarian

politics & governmenttravel & foreign lands

2011: The Year in Dictators

The year 2011 was an alarming one for dictators, as a series of mass uprisings toppled several authoritarian regimes in the Middle East. The so-called “Arab Spring” inspired wild hopes, with some optimists even declaring that the 20th century phenomenon of the dictator was finished, and a new era of democracy was dawning- just like in Eastern Europe in 1989. True? False? Let’s survey the Year in Dictators and find out! [Read more →]

travel & foreign landstrusted media & news

Russia, Egypt, Europe and the wind of change

Sometime around the arrest of Mikhail Khodorkovsky, a long period of abject Western media failure regarding the Putin phenomenon began. Journalists were so busy making fatuous comparisons to Stalin or hyping The New Cold War™ that they refused to address why the president was so popular in Russia. I suspect this is because many of them missed the 1990s, when Americans and Europeans had enjoyed near godlike status. Yeltsin had been no catastrophe for them, even if he was for 99.99% of everybody else.

However, Putin was genuinely popular and until a few weeks ago seemed unassailable. A generous man might read this as proof of success: that life in Russia has improved to the point where citizens are no longer willing to accept corruption in exchange for stability. When I lived in Russia, I attended some entirely futile anti-government rallies comprised of pensioners, punks and nationalists; the latest protests are larger, much more diverse and the Kremlin obviously hasn’t decided what to do about them…yet. [Read more →]

travel & foreign landstrusted media & news

Attack of the Little Satan

In June 2009, I found myself glued to the TV set, watching the crowds in Tehran protesting the rigged reelection of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad as president of Iran. I was amazed that things seemed to be falling apart so quickly for the motley crew of thugs, thieves, killers and millenarian fantasists that run the country. After all, their despotic regime was only 30 years old, and at that age the USSR was in the full, terrifying flower of Stalinism. It would be another four decades before it collapsed due to institutional senility and internal decay.

Even so, the revolutionary Islamists in Iran were still virile enough to repress those protests. And as the fists and boots hammered down, and young girls were shot dead in the street, there was precious little light relief until the Iranian authorities declared the British responsible for all the unrest. [Read more →]
diatribestrusted media & news

A rant and a wish for Thanksgiving

First, something for which I am less-than-thankful, this Thanksgiving … my annual plea to the media to please, please, PLEASE ignore the people waiting for hours-on-end outside the doors of some megamania superstore, jostling to be the first to glom onto some Black Friday bargain.
[Read more →]

art & entertainmentmovies

Surprised by fame, or: to Streep or not to Streep?

On Sunday, I was leafing through People when I spotted somebody I used to work with in the gossip pages. Apparently she’s dating a movie star and they are about to get married.

Wow.

The fact that she was marrying a movie star didn’t shock me so much (her sister is a well-known actress) but rather that somebody I knew had made it into the pages of a tabloid. A law of nature had been violated: celebrity magazines should contain pictures of people I don’t know, like Angelina Jolie, or Jennifer Aniston, or Michael Jackson’s (ex) doctor. [Read more →]

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