Month: October 2005

Via Pre$$titutes:

"The right-wing talk-merchants who, until Air American Radio came along
had the AM dial pretty much to themselves, complain constantly that the
mainstream media has a left-wing, anti-Bush bias. So too the cable news
chatterers. Much of the public believes this myth because it is
repeated so often – not, to be sure, on the strength of the evidence
which clearly proves otherwise.

"On CNN’s "Crossfire, Paul Begala reported the following results of a Nexis-Lexis Search:

"There
were exactly 704 stories in the [2000] campaign about this flap of Gore
inventing the Internet. There were only 13 stories about Bush failing
to show up for his National Guard duty for a year. There were well over
1,000 stories – Nexus stopped at 1,000 – about Gore and the Buddhist
temple. Only 12 about Bush being accused of insider trading at Harken
Energy. There were 347 about Al Gore wearing earth tones, but only 10
about the fact that Dick Cheney did business with Iran and Iraq and
Libya."

"The advantage of the myth of the liberal media to Bush and the
Republicans is enormous. To those who believe it, if a story favorable
to Bush and the GOP appears, the response is "it must be true, since
even the liberal media reports it." And critical stories? "Don’t
believe it, it’s just the liberal media dissing our President again."

The "Liberal Media" myth is a laughable farce, but it’s a tribute to the tenacity of the Right Wing Noise Machine that it’s become accepted fact by so many otherwise intelligent people.

Link to full post, at spun and spinning.

The earthquake in Pakistan was really hard for me to wrap my head around. I mean, I’ve lived with earthquakes my entire life, and I’ve lived through some really huge and terrifying ones, but nothing that even begins to approach the magnitude (pardon the pun) of the Pakistan quake earlier this month. Coming on the heels of Katrina and Rita, I have to admit that I was suffering from a major case of tragedy overload, and I didn’t really know what to say or do about it.

Just now, I read a story at Yahoo! News about natural disasters that brought the catastrophic enormity of the disaster into sharp, horrifying focus.

Of the estimated 61,000 people who have died this year due to natural
disasters, about 50,000 (according to today’s estimate) were victims of
the 7.6 earthquake that struck Pakistan Oct. 7. In 2004, by contrast, more than 60 percent of the total natural disaster deaths were caused by the tsunami in the Indian Ocean.

The whole story talks about how it’s not Mother Nature who is changing, as much as we who scurry about the planet are.
"Earth might seem
like a more active and dangerous place than ever, given the constant
media reports of multiple natural disasters recently. But a broader
view reveals that it’s not Mother Nature who’s changed, but we humans." It goes on to say "Drawn by undeveloped land and fertile soil, people are flocking to disaster-prone regions.

This creates a situation in which ordinary events like earthquakes
and hurricanes become increasingly elevated to the level of natural
disasters that reap heavy losses in human life and property."

Environmentalists have been succesfully demonized by the Right Wing Noise Machine, and some of the loonies out there don’t exactly help the cause, but we’ve only got one planet to live on right now, and it’s clear that we who scurry about on her surface are having an impact on how well she handles us. It’s something to think about, at least.

This diary at DailyKos has a fantastic list of organizations who can provide relief to the people in Pakistan who desperately need it right now. If you can help out, please do.

As a fringe benefit for writing the articles everyone visits the site to read, I have a membership at Suicide Girls, where I get to read lots of cool articles.

Seriously, the pretty ladies are nice and all, but there’s a whole lot more going on at SG, too. We put some great stories on the newswire, and the interviews are just outstanding, like this one with Danny Elfman that I read this afternoon.

DRE: Do you have any desire to play live music anymore?

ELFMAN: Not really. Let me put it this way, I have no desire ever to be on an Oingo Boingo stage again.

DRE: Why not?

ELFMAN: I can’t get in front of a stage that loud
again. I spent 17 years in a band in front of monitors and it fucked up
my ears. It was insanely loud. I was standing in front of four monitors
blasting my own voice into my head which has to be louder than the band
to be able to sing and hear yourself during these fucking two and a
half, three hour shows. Then it all has to be louder than 6000
screaming audience members. Believe me when I say this, it was louder
than anything you can imagine. I really got to the point where if I
stayed in that environment any longer I would be deaf right now.

DRE: Obviously, that would be highly detrimental to you.

ELFMAN: Yeah and as a result I’ve gotten some pretty
shitty hearing levels. Which is a big problem and it’s gotten to be a
worse problem as I go. So the thought of getting out into that level, I
mean I can’t even take really loud clubs anymore. If I walk into a
restaurant or a club where it’s loud it physically hurts. It feels like
I’m getting daggers in my head.

The Halloween concert at Irvine Meadows, then at the Universal Ampitheatre, were as much a Los Angeles tradition as anything else here, right up until the farewell show back in 1995. I was holding out hope that there may be some sort of reunion show, but I guess that won’t ever happen. Which is fine with me, because I have tremendous respect and affection for Danny Elfman, and hearing is sort of important and stuff.

If you’re a fan of Boingo, or any of Danny Elfman‘s other work, you should seriously check it out. There’s a lot of stuff in there about not scoring Spiderman 3, scoring Ed Wood, and how (not) crazy the Boingo days were.

Note: All the SG links in this post are technically safe for work, but it may be a little borderline for some people. You’ve been warned, so don’t bitch at me if your [husband | boss | mother | bartender] bitches at you about it.

This is the best Photoshop contest in history. I can’t remember the last time something on the Internets made me laugh so hard, tears rolled down my face and my stomach hurt.

Start at the top, and just scroll down.

Bravo, Farkers. I am in awe of your skills.