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Keith Olberman: Special Comment May 2008 [LINK-ZUM]

Part One:

Part Two:

MTV: Fascism Happened... [LINK-ZUM]

These two videos from think MTV [1] [2] are presented as a warning of what could happen in the United States of America. But they look to me like nothing so much as a depiction of what has been happening for quite some time as part of the war on drugs.

Labels: prohibition, television, video

Rationalist International: The Great Tantra Challenge [LINK-ZUM]

On 3 March 2008, in a popular TV show, Sanal Edamaruku, the president of Rationalist International, challenged India's most "powerful" tantrik (black magician) to demonstrate his powers on him. [...] India TV, one of India's major Hindi channels with national outreach, invited Sanal Edamaruku for a discussion on "Tantrik power versus Science". Pandit Surinder Sharma, who claims to be the tantrik of top politicians and is well known from his TV shows, represented the other side. During the discussion, the tantrik showed a small human shape of wheat flour dough, laid a thread around it like a noose and tightened it. He claimed that he was able to kill any person he wanted within three minutes by using black magic. Sanal challenged him to try and kill him.

[Article continues at link. Oh, this is a good one. Thanks to technoccult for the link. - Trevor Blake]

Labels: atheist, magick, television

BBC: US network faces $1m nudity fine [LINK-ZUM]

US television network ABC may have to pay a fine of $1.4m (707,000 UK Pounds) for airing an episode of NYPD Blue which depicted female nudity. The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) said the 2003 show had "multiple, close-up views" of a woman's buttocks before the US watershed. The FCC deems "sexual or excretory activities" shown in an "offensive" way before 2200 as indecent.

[Article continues at link. Here is the scene in question (video). What really happened in the less-than-40-seconds which the FCC fined? A woman took off her bath robe and stepped into a shower. The actress in question was not forced to do this and was likely paid handsomely, as was everyone on the set. No one, anywhere, was forced to watch that episode of that television show. No one, anywhere, was harmed in any way by watching that episode of that television show. Truth be told, most people do take of their clothes before stepping into the shower. This was not a sexual act nor was it an excretory activity. I can imagine some people being surprised, or embarrased, or confused by what they saw. But if their discomfort eats away at them for more than a short while, they have problems unrelated to this episode of this television show. One of them is watching television, and there's an easy answer for that problem. Preventing people from being surprised, embarrassed or confused is not the role of government. Neither is preventing people from being naked as part of their job, or in expression of their political views. The actress in question also appears nude in a protest against the use of animal fur in fashion. Should the government fine someone for that as well? A much more damning solution was available to the prudes who brought about this fine in the form of a boycott against advertisers of the television show. In that solution, everyone remains free to make the choices they want yet they are also accountable for them. We don't need the government to tell us what is bad on television. The answer is 'most of it.' Television is called a medium because it's seldom well done, as Ernie Kovacs said. But bad art isn't a crime, it's just bad art. What a shame that mainstream media companies are being punished for brief scenes of non-sexual nudity while not being shaken to their foundations for their uncritical support of George W. Bush's war of conquest and Jesus in the Middle East. - Trevor Blake]

Labels: christianity, fascism, sex, television, theocracy

Trevor Blake: The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (The Mormons) [LINK-ZUM]

There are feminist housewife Mormons, gay Mormons, kinky Mormons, celibate Mormons... Republican Mormons, Democratic Mormons, socialist Mormons, Libertarian Mormons... police Mormons and murdering Mormons.... orthodox Mormons and reformed Mormons and heretical Mormons... Mormons all over the map, so much so that most generalizations about their actions and character would likely fail. But it can be said that Mormon parents do place a premium on having children.

A study in Utah concluded that the more children a couple had, the worse their health became and the sooner they died. Parents in Utah have a fertilitate rate of 2.6, compared to 2 for the rest of the USA. Inbreeding among Mormons has caused the highest concentration of fumarase deficiency (and its resulting severe mental retardation) in the world.

Learn more about The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints than most LDS members know. Read The Book of Mormon and The Skeptics Annotated Book of Mormon. Although unwilling to turn their critical eye upon themselves, the Utah Lighthouse Ministry offers well-documented accounts of Mormonism. And wrap it all up by viewing (legally, of course, never via a pirate copy) episode 712 of South Park, titled All About The Mormons.

Labels: mormon, sex, television

Osborne & Hagmann: Bin Laden video transcript oddity [LINK-ZUM]

According to official U.S. government sources, the video from Osama bin Laden was reportedly obtained and transcribed today - 7 September 2007. The complete transcription, obviously transcribed after the video was obtained, was presented to news outlets in PDF format. One such copy can be downloaded in its entirety below. When analyzing the transcript, however, it was noted that the date of transcription is yesterday, 6 September 2007, one full day before the video was allegedly obtained.

[Article continues at link, with alleged downloads of the questionable transcript in PDF form. Also noted is the claim by George Maschke at Booman Tribune that the bin Laden video freezes for around eleven minutes while the audio continues. All references to current events occur during the time the video is frozen. Who might profit from the disemination of a video that claims to be a contemporary record of bin Ladin but which is not? - Trevor Blake]

Labels: fascism, islam, television, video

Trevor Blake: Outing [LINK-ZUM]

When a person has a private habit that harms/benefits only themselves and those who make informed decisions to be involved, it's just plain nobody else's business. If those same people have a private habit that they keep private - even if they make public statements that they don't have the private habits - they may be hypocrites but it is still their own business. There are sometimes very good reasons to tell lies about what one does... 'no, there are no Jews hidden in our attic...' But when a person has a private habit, makes public statements against that private habit, and uses political power to attempt to prevent others from enjoying that habit, I think outing is an appropriate response.

Congressman Ed Schrock (R-VA-2) didn't support the 'don't ask, don't tell' law. Not because he wanted the U. S. Military to openly accept homosexuals, but because he wanted the U. S. Military to ask soldiers about their sex lives and therefore keep them from serving. He also signed on as a co-sponsor of the Federal Marriage Amendment. Those are the public statements and public activities. The private habit that deserves outing is that Congressman Schrock is gay.

Ralph Reed is a former head of the Christian Coalition. He currently serves as Southeast regional chairman for the Bush-Cheney campaign. He has mobilized Christian churches and preachers to oppose Native American casinos. But while he was speaking out against the vice of gambling in public, he received US$1.25 million in 'consulting fees' from a front group, who in turn were paid by one particular Native American casino that didn't want any more competition.

I really don't care if someone is gay or if they gamble. I don't care if they do these things and lie about them. But when they do these things, lie about them and then use political power to prevent others from doing them, outing is appropriate.

[American Samizdat, September 5 2004. - Trevor Blake]

Labels: christianity, sex, television, theocracy

Trevor Blake: Paul Crouch [LINK-ZUM]

Paul Crouch is a good Christian man. He is one of the multi-millionaires behind TBN. Let's look into the virtue and leadership Brother Crouch offers.

In 1991 Crouch went into a 'Christian drug treatment program' for cocaine use, where he met and had sex with a man named Enoch Ford. Ford was eventually paid US$425,000 to not speak of the encounter. In 1994 Crouch pleaded no context to having sex with a seventeen-year-old boy and spent six months in jail for it (age of conscent in California? Eighteen). Crouch tested positive for cocaine during his probation, but TBN successfully petitioned the judge to not put him back in prison. In 1995 Crouch spent thirty days in jail for possession of cocaine. A woman who knew of Ford's intimacy with Crouch was paid US$12,000 by TBN; since then she doesn't giving her name, fearing 'reprisals.' In 1988 Crouch's defense for an accusation that he had sex with a male chauffeur was that he was drunk at the time. More recently, Enoch Ford has reconsidered the value of his silence and asked for US$10 million - TBN's counter-offer was US$1 million. (LA Times article, bugmenot to avoid registration).

What of Crouch's company, TBN? TBN lost its license to broadcast in Miami in 1999 for violating FCC laws: they had created a fake minority-owned company to meet requirements for diversity in programming. In 2002 they settled a multi-million dollar plagiarism lawsuit for basing their movie The Omega Code on a book called The Omega Syndrome. Crouch campaigned in 2001 for his childhood friend John Ashcroft on Crouch's 501(c)3 non-profit television network, claiming that since the Attorney General is an appointed rather than elected official there is no conflict with the law. TBN even dropped all of its coverage of professional wrestling (read the depth and detail of this link before you laugh). Paul Crouch has said that if more people went to church then 9/11 wouldn't have happened - and that people who do not donate to TBN will go to hell (Crouch would know, having made the claim that hell was accidentally discovered by a drilling company in 1989). Crouch 'healed' someone by faith on his TV show; that someone nearly died because they stopped taking their medicine. Strangely, Crouch was outted on his own TV show once.

Having sex and taking drugs are a personal decisions with all sorts of consequences: some good, some bad. But using one's position in life to put down those who make those same decisions is contemptable. Paul Crouch is just another typical good Christian man in this regard.

[American Samizdat, September 13 2004. - Trevor Blake]

Labels: christianity, prohibition, sex, television

Trevor Blake: Prudishness [LINK-ZUM]

Via Buzzmachine...

159 people complained to the FCC that the already-cancelled television show Married By America suggested (not showed - suggested) that people might have sex, some day, off camera. The FCC spanked a USD $1.2 million fine on Fox as a result.

Except it wasn't 159 people. It was 90 complaints. And 88 of those complaints were identical. So in the end, three people who couldn't stand the idea of someone, somewhere, possibly, without their knowing, having sex - these three people cost Fox $1.2 million.

All kinds of wrong here. It's shameful that some people are so concerned that others might have sex (and this was straight sex between married people, at that!). It's shameful that Fox caved. It's shameful that my tax dollars support an FCC that would do something like that. On the other hand, makes you wonder what more people (say, four or five) could do if they set their minds to it.

[American Samizdat, November 15 2004. - Trevor Blake]

Labels: sex, television

media tags [LINK-ZUM]

architecture art blog books comic comics film flash mac music palm periodical podcasts sewing spoken television ubuntu video zine

Labels: architecture, art, blog, books, comic, comics, film, flash, mac, music, palm, periodical, podcasts, sewing, spoken, television, ubuntu, video, zine

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