Friday, April 30, 2004
Cleaning the war: Read about Sinclair Broadcasting Group's disgraceful attempt to sanitize the war in Iraq in the Washington Post. The company is refusing to allow its ABC affiliates air tonight’s Nightline episode — The Fallen —becuse it focuses on the human toll of the war. Apparently Sinclair execs — Republican contributors all — don’t want The People thinking too much about things like that in an election year. Send Sinclair CEO an e-mail here.
Sidebar from Common Cause: “Sinclair’s censorship is only a taste of the chokehold on information that media giants are able to achieve. This time, Sinclair’s censorship affected only the ABC affiliates it owns. But if the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) is permitted to deregulate media ownership, one company could shut off information it did not like to the hundreds of TV and radio stations, newspapers and cable systems it owns across the country.”
More sanitizing action: the photos the pentagon doesn't want you to see are at thememoryhole.org.
Thursday, April 29, 2004
Net on the side: In the course of my working day, there was:
Citizen Blogger Benjamins for Kerry [via gift hub the new "more serious and purposeful" spawn of wealth bondage.]
Los Angeles has a brain terrain and it has a calendar of literary events. [via californiaauthors]
Saturday, April 24, 2004
When good works: Twenty-seven authors, the editor, publishers, artists, publicist, sales rep and printer donated their work to produce My California: Journeys by Great Writers (June 2004, Angel City Press) — so sales of the book can benefit the bleaguered California Arts Council. CaliforniaAuthors.com sums up the challenge:
“The Arts Council has seen its budget slashed from $31 million in 2000 to just $1 million during 2003. To understand how low public support for the arts in California has sunk, consider these figures cited in a recent Sacramento Bee editorial: Canadians spend an annual $145 per capita to fund the arts; Germans, $85; New Yorkers, $2.75; Mississippians, $1.31; Californians, 3 cents.”
The project is a cooperative effort of CaliforniaAuthors.com and Angel City Press. The impressive author line-up includes Pico Iyer, Dana Gioia, Thomas Steinbeck, Michael Chabon, T. Jefferson Parker, Aimee Liu, Edward Humes, Patt Morrison, Mark Arax. Get a full list and learn more about this project here. Do the right thing: Pre-Order now at ImperialGoods.com.