What do you hear? What do you believe?

[malasadas.livejournal.com]

One of the great benefits of the internet is that we can see and hear events that never make it as major stories in the major media outlets. It's also a problem -- obscure events can be elevated to become "representative" of entire groups of people without balance or actual analysis. We are constantly asked in the age of internet media to evaluate raw information without knowledge of context or proportionality.

This video, for example, made some rounds on the net a few months back. It purports to show a group of community organizers praying to Obama. The distributor of the video added captions at key points to assist your hearing of the key phrase "Deliver us, Obama".

Pretty damning, isn't it? Now the audio is pretty low quality, but when you watch it and listen it is pretty clear that they ARE offering prayer directly to the President.

Now listen to the video WITHOUT watching it.

If you are being honest, I'm thinking there is a really good chance that you are a lot less sure of what is being said.

So here is a question: how do you approach the supposedly "raw" information we have constant access to via alternative media sources? How much do these sources influence the "mainstream" media and what are the implications for how much even allegedly unbiased orignal source material can be manipulated?

This was a problem?

[xforge.livejournal.com]

The new bill would make it illegal for a school district to teach any courses that promote the overthrow of the U.S. government, promote resentment of a particular race or class of people, are designed primarily for students of a particular ethnic group or "advocate ethnic solidarity instead of the treatment of pupils as individuals."

Was... there formerly a problem with teachers in Arizona teaching classes that promote the overthrow of the US government?

Or any of that?

I'm kinda genuinely curious, in addition to wondering why this needed to be a statewide law. Don't local school boards control curriculum? Wouldn't that be something the school board and presumably the parent-teacher organizations would sorta say... hey can we not be teaching that to our kids please?