"Play Faster! Play FASTER! PLAY..."(maniacal laughter) "FASTER!"

[paft.livejournal.com]

It's interesting to observe, as time goes by, the rise and fall of horrible crazes that cause later generations to shake their heads in wonder at the inhumanity and dumbness of their ancestors. The Drug War is one of these. I can remember the insane anti-drug lectures and films I sat through in high school, showing the deadly effects of "Mary Jane" or "Grass." You could always hear the scare quotes as the narrator attempted to communicate with us in our own kooky teen lingo. There was the film that said airily of some football player being offered a joint by Maynard Krebs, "Oh, he was no angel, but he'd never done anything as hard as 'grass.' Just occasional beer and barbituates the night before a test." (Sounded to me like the guy offering him a joint was doing him a favor.) I remember the films on LSD use that made it look so much more interesting than it actually was. The one about the tripping hippie girl in San Francisco biting into a hot-dog, hearing it scream, and opening it up to find a bloodied troll doll set me up for some serious disappointment.

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Journalism, Cuomo and reality

[enders-shadow.livejournal.com]

I'm gonna go ahead and do a little crowd-sourcing for my info!

I recently watched a TED-talk about how there is no such thing as objective journalism. (source) He discusses how the history of journalism and how it's always been about selling the most papers and making that money and who gives a fuck if it's true!

Well, OK. So after I watched that, I went ahead and browsed some news headlines. I saw one that caught my eye, primarily, cause it seemed very much at odds with what I would expect. Here's the headline:

Gov. Andrew Cuomo says gun-loving pro-lifers not welcome in New York, right explodes

As a NYer, this seemed very very odd. Gov Cuomo is a pretty shrewd politician and this year he is up for re-election. It's a not private secret that Cuomo might eye the 2016 nod for President, so he totally wants to be a sitting Gov for that--looks better to the voters and all.

So why the hell would Cuomo alienate two big voting blocks in an election year? NYC might be super-liberal, but upstate NY is kinda rednecky. They love their guns and lotta folks hate on abortion. So what gives Herr Gov?

Well, as I read the article (found here source ) it seemed odder and odder, but I mean, it's possible he said such things. So I go ahead and click on the video link that you will see on that website. It's not actually video, just a still picture while some audio plays. This is unfortunate. I must admit here I have not heard Gov. Cuomo make many speeches. None in person and only bits here and there from his State of the State or whatnot. But as I listened to the embeded audio I became more and more skeptical that this voice was the voice of Andrew Cuomo. (The article already lost some credibility when in the first line it said his name was "Gov. Chris Cuomo")

I'm about ready to reject the entire so-called news story. I don't want to believe that they made the entire thing up--but I really don't see much choice. I went and found a video with audio of Cuomo talking (I do know what the guy looks like!) and the voice and cadence don't seem to mesh with the voice of the fellow who is alienating pro-life, pro-gun voters.


I am willing to be wrong.
A) Do any of you think that Cuomo did make such comments? Why?
B) If Cuomo did make such comments, I gotta lose some respect for his political prowess (not that he's my favorite politician, but I did at least think he knew what he was doing, even if I didn't like what he was doing) cause it seems really dumb to make those sorts of statements in an election year. Do any of you see his comments in a different light?
C) Objective journalism might not exist; but we can all agree that news isn't news if its totally false, right? Then it's just fiction? And while journalism may be heavily editorialized it should at least have some grounding in fact, otherwise, it's like Glenn Beck's chalkboard--worthless.