Here is a clip from the excellent documentary Manufacturing Consent: Noam Chomsky and the Media (1992) in which Noam Chomsky (who in 1988, with Edward Herman, wrote the classic of media analysis Manufacturing Consent) explains why the political discourse on TV is so awful and consists of only people who speak conventional pieties.
Monthly Archive: November 2011
Nov 26 2011
ChristWire parody site
As readers have pointed out many times before, the claims of creationists are so bizarre that it is hard to distinguish the sites of genuine believers from parody sites. One site that has puzzled many people and media outlets is ChristWire. One item that gave tips to women on how to find out if their …
Nov 25 2011
Brooklyn Roads by Neil Diamond
This is my favorite Neil Diamond song, an evocative embrace of childhood memories.
Nov 25 2011
Piers Morgan and the Murdoch phone tapping scandal
In the continuing fallout of the scandal involving the Murdoch media empire, Rupert Murdoch’s son James has resigned from the boards of the Sun and the Times and shareholders are being urged to not re-elect him as chair of BSkyB. In an interesting sidelight, it is alleged that phone hacking also occurred at the Daily …
Nov 24 2011
Happy Thanksgiving
I hope all of you have a quiet and enjoyable day with family and friends, which is what I will be doing. What I will not be doing this weekend is going anyway near any store. Recession, depression, or good times, the madness of shopping that accompanies this weekend is what I hate most about …
Nov 23 2011
Is this billboard offensive?
Apparently that’s what a billboard company in north central Ohio said in refusing to put it up. However the company is quite willing to post religious billboards. The whole story is quite bizarre. (Via Pharyngula) This illustrates once again that religious people resort to the strategy of ‘taking offense’ because they have no rational arguments …
Nov 23 2011
Our corrupt Congress
60 Minutes blows the lid off how members of Congress are legally allowed to use the inside knowledge to which only they have access to make money on the stock market and in other deals. This is why so many of them leave Congress as multi-millionaires. How is this legal? Because in making the insider …
Nov 22 2011
God’s Away on Business
The similarities in the voices of Cookie Monster and Tom Waits is uncanny. Since it is hard to make out the words sometimes, here are the lyrics. I’d sell your heart to the junk-man baby for a buck, for a buck If you’re looking for someone to pull you out of that ditch, you’re out …
Nov 22 2011
The supercommittee throws in the towel
My prediction that the point of the supercommittee was a way to gets cuts in social programs passed in Congress was wrong. Although that may have been the plan all along, it seems like the devotion of the Republicans to enriching the already superrich was too strong to overcome their desire to inflict pain on …
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