tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-573188106264061392.post3880270526325918454..comments2024-03-28T05:47:44.752-05:00Comments on RIFLES AT DAWN: SheepTim Morrisseyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00457723301178870851noreply@blogger.comBlogger5125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-573188106264061392.post-37199590537620772262010-02-25T08:20:12.846-06:002010-02-25T08:20:12.846-06:00Excellent post, Tim. I agree that Leonard Pitts i...Excellent post, Tim. I agree that Leonard Pitts is a great writer, one of the top 4 or 5 columnists writing today. I see no reason why the great investigative reporting of print journalism cannot be transferred to the web. Whether it's on a printed page or a screen, good writing and reporting is, well, good. It's when the news organization, network, or reporter sells out for ratings, newspaper sales,or page views at the expense of everything else that the problems occur. And yes, that's happening way too much.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-573188106264061392.post-75088401586170271502010-02-24T17:10:07.400-06:002010-02-24T17:10:07.400-06:00A few years ago I was having a conversation with a...A few years ago I was having a conversation with a Canadian who reflecting on the differences between higher education between our two great nations. He had this to say; "In the US, universities teach students to conform. In Canada, universities teach students to think for themselves."<br />For what it's worth...MattRockhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13305216142043271357noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-573188106264061392.post-14926479325780779112010-02-24T13:48:55.043-06:002010-02-24T13:48:55.043-06:00Reposting
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The misguided disciples at the McCai...Reposting<br />---<br />The misguided disciples at the McCain rally you mention are as much victims as they are sheep.<br /><br />President Obama was born in Hawaii, but that means nothing to the “birthers” who ignore the tangible, physical fact of his birth certificate and insist he was really born in Africa. Hey! Hawaii was not even a state at the time.<br /><br />Well, neither was the Panama Canal Zone, where Sen. John McCain was born – another palpable fact the birther loonies choose to ignore.<br /><br />The muck-raking radical-right media, with its assorted liars and blowhards and fringe religiosos has been around a long time (Look up Billy Sunday and his 1920s contemporary, Father Charles Coughlin – the father of hate radio.)<br /><br />Mass media makes it relatively easy to incite anger in one social stripe or another, however bogus the grievances may be, and to unscrupulously tap into it. Not only is this channeled anger an effective path to political power, the profits are enormous.<br /><br />With the power an aphrodisiac and the money easy, the greed-is-good media puppeteers behave like so many bot fly larvae, burrowing into the brains of their bamboozled victims, whose lives are poisoned and diminished and controlled by the continuous doses of manufactured rage.<br /><br />Father Coughlin had a radio show. Today’s hatemongers, themselves numerous, have many radio stations, a TV network and a complex, insidious Internet presence. True believers in their line can readily find what passes, in their minds, for “proof” simply by spinning the dial or surfing the Web. It all seems so real; they will never believe they are being conned.<br /><br />We are seeing the rise of the hive mind, a sort of conformity or groupthink, swarm behavior enabled by the explosively fast ubiquity of the Internet. And you thought Star Trek’s “Borg collective” was just some science fiction story and not a serious look at a real-life social problem that was already evident in the mid 1990s.<br /><br />In his intelligent and important book, “You are not a Gadget,” Jaron Lanier – the father of virtual reality and one of the small band that gave us the Internet in its present form – explains how the hive mind came to power, and how it persists. He says, ruefully, it wasn’t supposed to turn out like this, and acknowledges that fixing it won’t be easy.<br /><br />Along the way, Lanier explains what happened to traditional news media and why. I commend the book to your attention.hieronymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-573188106264061392.post-28463968287686862732010-02-24T12:43:25.350-06:002010-02-24T12:43:25.350-06:00My my Tim,...tell it like it is! I'm proud of...My my Tim,...tell it like it is! I'm proud of you!! I'm SSOO glad I retired because solid journalism has been hi-jacked by the likes of Roger Ailes and made into a ratings grabbing sensational pile of sh--!! When so many people BUY what Rsuh Limbaugh says as GOSPEL,...we're in deep do-do. <br />Enuf of my rant! Think of you often and pray life is being good to you. Jerry BurkeAnonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-573188106264061392.post-76607701945615978992010-02-24T07:34:54.837-06:002010-02-24T07:34:54.837-06:00This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.hieronymousnoreply@blogger.com