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July 27, 2006
07.27.06 A Series of Tubes; Negro Subversion; Hezbollah is not a Puppet
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July 27, 2006 Edition |
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THiS WEEK: How the internets really work; why Hezbollah is not "just a puppet" of Iran or Syria; looking at the diversity of crime; what makes an encyclopedia useful—or accurate; a look at the downside of debt relief; the toxics-ridden cosmetics industry gets a PR makeover; the bizarre, yet cruelty-free, world of lab-grown meat; the art of plague; a century of "negro subversion"; and much more in this long-overdue-but-worth-the-wait edition of Media Picks.
This Week's Picks:
- VIDEO | Just a Series of Tubes
As Senator Ted Stevens taught us in his June 28 speech on net neutrality, the internet is not a truck, but is, rather, a series of tubes. Naturally, the Senator's quote inspired a flurry of satirical videos, websites, and, of course, hilarious send-ups on The Daily Show.Jon Stewart | The Daily Show
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DClkE64nFDY - Hezbollah Not a Puppet
The Bush administration’s suggestion that Hezbollah’s incursion into Northern Israel was carried out at the behest of either Syria, which sought to stir up trouble in the region, or Iran, which wanted to divert international attention away from its disputed nuclear program, is misguided. All politics — even Islamist politics — is local; one need look no further than the internal dynamics of Lebanon to understand why Hezbollah would so recklessly cross the border and attack Israeli troops.Reza Aslan | Herald Sun
http://www.news.com.au/heraldsun/story/0,21985,19905085-5006029,00.html - Report: Everything Made in Sweatshops
The report was compiled by 135 government employees in an 20-by-80-foot Quonset hut without air-conditioning working six 18-hour shifts a week for $1.15 an hour. - AUDIO | A Life of Crime
We think of crime as a kind of monolithic, menacing presence. But there are many kinds of crimes, and many kinds of criminals. Through our crimes, we express who we are. Today we hear of three different criminals and three different kinds of crimes.This American Life
http://audio.wbez.org/tal/135.m3u - Know It All
On March 1st, Wikipedia, the online interactive encyclopedia, hit the million-articles mark, with an entry on Jordanhill, a railway station in suburban Glasgow. The Encyclopædia Britannica, which for more than two centuries has been considered the gold standard for reference works, has only a hundred and twenty thousand entries in its most comprehensive edition. Apparently, no traditional encyclopedia has ever suspected that someone might wonder about Sudoku or about prostitution in China. Or, for that matter, about the Boston molasses disaster, the Rhinoceros Party of Canada, the forty-five-minute Anglo-Zanzibar War, or Islam in Iceland.Stacy Schiff | The New Yorker
http://www.newyorker.com/fact/content/articles/060731fa_fact - The Devil's Brew of Poverty Relief
Back in 2000, the United Nations established a Millennium Development Goal to halve global poverty by 2015. The G8's enormous wealth, along with its dominance in world trade, was to play the key role in this worldwide assault on poverty and disease. But six years into this war on poverty the goals are mired in a devil's brew of self-serving economic policies, lethargic bureaucracy, and outright disingenuousness.Conn Hallinan | Mother Jones
http://www.motherjones.com/commentary/columns/2006/07/poverty_relief.html - Cosmetic Solutions: The Makeup Industry Gives Itself a Health Hazard Makeover
Breast cancer. Genital abnormalities. Distortion and damage of genetic material. Common ingredients in cosmetic products have been linked to these hazards. As further research is conducted into the long-term and cumulative effects on cosmetics users, their children and the water supply that products are washed off into, more questions arise. Not that you'd know it by listening to the cosmetics industry.Diane Farsetta | PR Watch
http://www.prwatch.org/node/4961 - CARTOON | The Postmodern Condition
Clay Butler | Sidewalk Bubblegum
http://www.sidewalkbubblegum.com/images/150.gif - Would You Eat Lab-Grown Meat?
As I type these words, men and women of science are growing meat in a laboratory. That's meat grown independently of any animal. It isn't hatched or born. It doesn't graze, walk or breathe. But it is alive. It sits growing in a room where somebody has called it into existence with a pipette and syringe.Traci Hukill | The Tyee
http://thetyee.ca/Life/2006/07/18/LabMeat/ - Marching Plague: The Critical Art Ensemble's Biological Defense Program
A current work by the Critical Art Ensemble entitled "Marching Plague" mocks the notion that biological terror presents any serious practical threat, arguing instead that extravagant spending of tax dollars to defend against bioterror is no more than a means of "maximizing profit and consolidating power through the matrix of biocatastrophe."Stan Cox | Counter Punch
http://www.counterpunch.org/cox07132006.html - Negro Subversion: Then and Now
In a nation built on the foundation of White supremacy, anyone the authorities perceive as threatening that foundation is considered subversive. This has always been true of African Americans who fought for racial equality, and is now equally true for an increasing number of people, including artists, Muslims and anyone who speaks out against this nation's state-sponsored violence and racism.Clinton L. Cox | The Black Commentator
http://www.blackcommentator.com/191/191_negro_subversion_cox_guest.html - AUDIO | Pentagon's Fine Line: War Machine, P.R. Machine
The U.S. military doesn't do all its public relations work overseas -- it's also investing in grass-roots efforts here at home. The Pentagon's "America Supports You" program employs Pentagon staff and private PR contractors to coordinate activities that support the armed forces. "Freedom Walk" marches, letter-writing campaigns, even supplements in kids' Weekly Reader, are all paid for by the Pentagon itself.Martin Kaste | NPR Morning Edition
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=5553746 - A Corrupt, Brutal Dictator in the White House
In early 2004, President Bush issued a presidential proclamation barring corrupt foreign officials from entering the United States. Then, a few months ago, in spite of that proclamation, Washington was treated to the disgusting spectacle of an official visit by Teodoro Obiang, the corrupt dictator who rules over oil-rich Equatorial Guinea. But now the Bush Administration is preparing to roll out the red carpet for a man who, by sheer numbers, appears to have stolen far more than Obiang: President Nursultan Nazarbayev of Kazakhstan.Ken Silverstein | Harpers
http://www.harpers.org/sb-a-corrupt-brutal-dictator-1152915051.html
- Media Picks Contributing Editors: Adam Barker, Justin Park
- Media Picks compiled and edited by Erin
Wiegand and Brian Awehali
Posted by erin at July 27, 2006 10:02 AM