Jing-reed's Musings from Thailand

Murdoch is Sorry . . .

And if you believe the above, which has appeared as a full page ad in many British newspapers, you will believe anything.

Now, from down under a pertinent reflection on Mr. Murdoch..

An empire teeters as the mud sticks [Sydney Morning Herald]

"The game is up, the truth is out. Keith Rupert Murdoch, the little Aussie battler who boldly believed he could take on the world on his own terms and win, stands publicly unmasked as the amoral and duplicitous bully he has always been.

The phone-hacking scandal in Britain has revealed for all to see what most of us in journalism and politics on three continents have long known but have been too cowed to say: that Murdoch is a hollow titan who has trashed the democratic ideal of the people's right to know the truth and the duty of a free press to seek it for them.

In the United States, his ferociously right-wing television channel, Fox News, exemplifies what the Watergate reporter Carl Bernstein described this week as "Murdoch's genius at building an empire on the basis of an ever-descending lowest journalistic denominator".

Same here. In this country, the Murdoch tabloids are vicious to those who displease them. News Limited's national newspaper, The Australian, daily indulges in vendetta journalism, where news is no longer separate from opinion and enemies real or imagined are savaged beyond all reason.

But in Britain Murdoch's News International company has trawled new depths. To spy on murder victims and soldiers' widows, the sick and the afflicted - and yes, even the politically powerful, the royal family and a former prime minister, Gordon Brown, no less - is to abandon all decency in the naked pursuit of profit.  . . . . . "

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Fox News Brainwashing

14 Propaganda Techniques Fox "News" Uses to Brainwash Americans

"There is nothing more sacred to the maintenance of democracy than a free press. Access to comprehensive, accurate and quality information is essential to the manifestation of Socratic citizenship - the society characterized by a civically engaged, well-informed and socially invested populace. Thus, to the degree that access to quality information is willfully or unintentionally obstructed, democracy itself is degraded.

It is ironic that in the era of 24-hour cable news networks and "reality" programming, the news-to-fluff ratio and overall veracity of information has declined precipitously. Take the fact Americans now spend on average about 50 hours a week using various forms of media, while at the same time cultural literacy levels hover just above the gutter. Not only does mainstream media now tolerate gross misrepresentations of fact and history by public figures (highlighted most recently by Sarah Palin's ludicrous depiction of Paul Revere's ride), but many media actually legitimize these displays. Pause for a moment and ask yourself what it means that the world's largest, most profitable and most popular news channel passes off as fact every whim, impulse and outrageously incompetent analysis of its so-called reporters. How did we get here? Take the enormous amount of misinformation that is taken for truth by Fox audiences: the belief that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction (WMD) and that he was in on 9/11, the belief that climate change isn't real and/or man-made, the belief that Barack Obama is Muslim and wasn't born in the United States, the insistence that all Arabs are Muslim and all Muslims are terrorists, the inexplicable perceptions that immigrants are both too lazy to work and are about to steal your job. All of these claims are demonstrably false, yet Fox News viewers will maintain their veracity with incredible zeal. Why? Is it simply that we have lost our respect for knowledge?

My curiosity about this question compelled me to sit down and document the most oft-used methods by which willful ignorance has been turned into dogma by Fox News and other propagandists disguised as media. The techniques I identify here also help to explain the simultaneously powerful identification the Fox media audience has with the network, as well as their ardent, reflexive defenses of it.

The good news is that the more conscious you are of these techniques, the less likely they are to work on you. The bad news is that those reading this article are probably the least in need in of it.

...One final observation. Fox audiences, birthers and Tea Partiers often defend their arguments by pointing to the fact that a lot of people share the same perceptions. This is a reasonable point to the extent that Murdoch's News Corporation reaches a far larger audience than any other single media outlet. But, the fact that a lot of people believe something is not necessarily a sign that it's true; it's just a sign that it's been effectively marketed.

As honest, fair and truly intellectual debate degrades before the eyes of the global media audience, the quality of American democracy degrades along with it. . . . . . "

I realize that this article is more preaching to the choir, but should be required reading for all Americans.  However, those most in need of understanding its message probably would have no clue what it was all about.  Fox afficionados are not just stupid, they appear to be stupid by choice.

Fox Changes Geographic Location of Egypt

Fox News graphics department has shaky grasp of Mideast geography

Admitedly this screen shot is from 2009, but has been popping up all over the the internet since the recent upheaval in Egypt.  [Personally I would consider the real Egypt to be in North Africa rather then the somewhat nebulous 'middle east'.]

And how strange that Fox propagandized a war in Iraq for nearly ten years and then entire country seems to have disappeared.  However, most Fox viewers probably never noticed the difference. . . . . 

 

Quite Interesting

My absolute favorite British TV program is Q.I. [Quite Interestiing] with the errudite Stephen Fry.  This particular episode has four charming guests, Jo Brand, Sean Lock and David Mitchell, alongside regular panellist Alan Davies.  The focus is on the word and concept of 'Great'.

The show begins with the question 'What was 'The Great Disappointment'? [hint, the long awaited second coming of Christ, this particular one forecast by the Millerites in 1844, and which obviously never happened.]

Fascinating to find that these four panellists are not familiar with 'The Rapture', currently in vogue with most American evangelicals..  How absolutely refreshing.  Also contains a nice rundown of some of the bizarre religious groups that flourish in America and how they got their start.  But the jewel of this episode is 'The Great Turtle Mystery', or why it took 300 years to give the great tortoise a scientific name, in part 4.  

   QI XL, Series G: Episode 10 - Greats

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   Part 2
   Part 3
   Part 4
   Part 5

Angels In America

Angels In America

The Plot is complex, so here is the Wikipedia version:

"It's 1985: God has abandoned heaven, Ronald Reagan is in the White House, and Death swings the quiet scythe of AIDS across the nation. In Manhattan, Prior Walter tells Lou, his lover of four years, he's ill; Lou, unable to handle it, leaves him. As disease and loneliness ravage Prior, guilt invades Lou.

Joe Pitt, an attorney who is Mormon and Republican, is pushed by right-wing fixer Roy Cohn toward a job at the United States Department of Justice. Both Pitt and Cohn are in the closet: Pitt out of shame and religious turmoil, Cohn to preserve his power and image. Pitt's wife Harper is strung out on Valium, causing her to hallucinate constantly, and she longs to escape from her sexless marriage.

An angel commands Prior to be a prophet. Pitt's mother and Belize, a close friend, help Prior choose. Joe leaves his wife and goes to live with Lou, but the relationship doesn't work out.

Roy is diagnosed with AIDS early on, and as his life comes to a close he is haunted by the ghost of Ethel Rosenberg. As the film continues, these lost souls come together to create bonds of love, loss, and loneliness and, in the end, discover forgiveness and overcome abandonment."

Originally a Broadway play by Tony Kushner, in 2003 HBO turned it into a six hour TV miniseries, later released on DVD.  The result is one of the most thought-provoking, visually-beautiful works of art that most have ever seen. In fact, it's a testament to the show that even using the descriptor 'miniseries' seems misleading – it's more of an 'epic', regardless of the forms it has taken. It combines gut wrenching truth with magic realism and a touch of The Wizard of Oz.

The dialog of this work of art is intelligent and brilliant, the speechs by the various characters become poems touched by the spirit of Shakespeare.

Meryl Streep and Al Pacino deliver the finest performances of their careers.  Emma Thompson is absolutely radiant. And the performances of Jeffrey Wright, Mary-Louise Parker, Justin Kirk and Ben Shenkman positively shine.

"If Angels valorizes gay men who decided not to die secret deaths anymore in the Ronald Reagan plague years, it is as well an exalted dialectic of longing and dreaming, of the past we can’t get back to and the future we can’t see—not to mention a gloss on Pascal: Maybe He is lost, maybe abducted, or maybe absconded, but God is certainly gone. And should He happen to return, well then, as Prior Walter instructs the Angel, “Sue the bastard!”

And with a musical score to match the exhalted levels of word and vision.

     Main theme from Angels in America composed by Thomas Newman

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Lipton Ice Tea with Hugh Jackman

 

I usually watch TV with a thumb on the mute button so that most assinine commercials never assail my ears.  Now this is one commercial that I wouldn't mind watching/listening to.  And, I never cease to be amazed at how multitalented Hugh Jackman seems to be.

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Fox [yawn] News

 

With the proviso that I am preaching to the choir here, further proof that Fox News has nothing to do with the reality of what is actually happening in the U.S., or world for that matter.  Fox broadcasters and viewers continue to perform for Jon Stewart. 

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart	Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c
On Topic: Scandal-List - Tea Bagging
www.thedailyshow.com
Daily Show Full Episodes Political Humor Health Care Reform

Televisione appassionato stile italiano

 

Passions run high in Italy.  We may never know what these Italian TV producers were fighting about, but it was obviously very important to them. They couldn't even wait until they got out of the view of the camera before they let their fists fly. The way the anchor slinks out as the fight progresses is priceless.

The Daily Show and Gretchen Carlson

 

Fox seems to get dumber with each passing day - obviously in order to please their not too bright viewing audiance.  Jon Stewart discovers the 'dumb act' of Gretchen Carlson is just more of their 24/7 bullshit.  Which leads one to believe that the only truthful thing about that network is that they really are catering to the abysmally low I.Q.'s of their 'all uhmericun' viewers.

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart	Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c
Gretchen Carlson Dumbs Down
www.thedailyshow.com
Daily Show Full Episodes Political Humor Health Care Crisis

Japanese Game Show with Marshmallows

The whole point is for members of two opposing teams [in blue and red] to strap a rubber band to their face, which is firmly attached to a wall, and try to eat a marshmallow bobbing and swinging from a string.

If you are not familiar with Japanese game shows, this video is a wonderful introduction.  A knowledge of the Japanese language is really not necessary.  Strange, senseless, utterly bizarre..........and hilarious.