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espsummer
340 posts

Re: The News
Jan 30, 2015, 07:06
its interesting how we get our news these days. Nothing seems "official" anymore. When i was growing up it was literally CBS, NBC, ABC. Now with more choice its as if the floodgates have opened and with this choice you can form you own world view based upon a wide variety of news sources that are pandering to the many different types of political mindsets that exist. Of course in the old days you may very well not even hear about things that a corporation did not want known because of their personal interest but today you just surf from source to source often just to reinforce your own viewpoints. Huffington Post is an onslaught of liberal views, terrible click bait, and the endless "lists of why you should do this or not do that", as well as general TMZ reporting. After visiting the page for a while you say to yourself "what the hell am i doing?" CNN is just as bad or perhaps worse. Their new design is purely click bait often now as video rather that articles to read. In the end you feel as an onlooker disconnected in a vast universe of the most important to the most miniscule of information just going by in an absurd circus that cannot be stopped. Its an entertainment of distraction and as long as you are distracted by Papa John eating pizza with a fork then you are not going to think about him cutting employee hours so he does not have to pay for Obamacare and can line his pockets even more at the expense of others........But hey he's a just a regular guy now because he did a funny thing. Glad i clicked on that article. All is forgiven.
Captain Starlet
Captain Starlet
1110 posts

Re: The News
Jan 30, 2015, 09:40
In many ways I think it's a good thing that the proverbial floodgates have been opened, it encourages people to look more (unless they only read the one site) but there's a lot more criticism of the old guard and many people are looking for more alternative sources for news.

I have some good discussions on the Press TV, Al-Jazeera news pages and RT on face ache but yeah they're still incredibly bias, especially when it comes to the Middle East, but they're pretty good when reporting on the UK as there's not that 'influence' so to speak and very little click bait.

I've no problem with the clickbait as such, if it pays to keep news sites free to read I guess it's the price that's paid. There's always a funnier cat pic after all!
Captain Starlet
Captain Starlet
1110 posts

Re: The News
Jan 30, 2015, 09:42
Will have a look at that, PressTV is quite good for UK stuff too, pity they got banned over here.
billding68
billding68
1016 posts

Re: The News
Jan 30, 2015, 11:10
Markoid wrote:
billding68 wrote:
Markoid wrote:
billding68 wrote:
[quote="Sin Agog"]I agree Pakistan and some aspects of Sharia law there are pretty effed up (though the country of Pakistan should never have been made in the first place- by a couple of English gents, over a dinner table). I just don't think it's up to us to put things in order. You can't be a moral force with guns in your hands. It's just a stupid, absurd image.

And has any American-intervention ever been resolved amicably? Has it ever improved much of anything. or has it just pissed a bunch of people off? Why not try a new system of actively helping out. When Russia was in some dire financial straits in the late '70s, Carter agreed to ship them wheat in exchange for a change in their humanitarian policies- letting some of those who wanted to leave the country do so. It worked. There's no remunerative gain to be had out of this method, but if our aim was to truly help people out in need of helping, we could do so much better without wielding a single gun. Unfortunately, that is not our aim. Evil (which, yeah, I don't think really exists) cannot be countered by acting evil. People learn by example. Children learn that way. Adults learn that way. Species learn that way.


The U.S. leads the world (as it should) in foreign aid

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/08/30/us-foreign-aid-by-country_n_1837824.html



Really? I'm actually not allowed to go to the US to visit a friend in Boston, due to misdemeanour a long time ago. I didn't kill anybody!

I, and I say I am not welcome in your country, apparentely. Bin Laden was though, selling weapons to yous lot! The UK is slightly better in that aspect though.. Democracy?

My friend in Boston said "Hi Marko!

A very happy new year to you, too!

I'm sorry to hear that the US is holding a grudge about something. They did the same with John Lennon.

Have a great celebration in London. Probably a better place to be anyway. Or Glasgow, if you happen to be there. Definitely a great place to be!"

So how does your misdemeanor have any baring on the amount of U.S. aid given out? I don't understand your comment or how the two relate sorry.



I am not a threat to your society, or possibly I am?

If not barred from anything, then you're doing

The immigration laws have nothing to do at all with our foreign aid policies I'm still trying to wrap my head around the point your trying to make.sucks you can't enter the country I get that but what's that got to do with this topic.
Markoid
Markoid
1621 posts

Edited Jan 30, 2015, 12:01
Re: The News
Jan 30, 2015, 11:28
billding68 wrote:
Markoid wrote:
billding68 wrote:
Markoid wrote:
billding68 wrote:
[quote="Sin Agog"]I agree Pakistan and some aspects of Sharia law there are pretty effed up (though the country of Pakistan should never have been made in the first place- by a couple of English gents, over a dinner table). I just don't think it's up to us to put things in order. You can't be a moral force with guns in your hands. It's just a stupid, absurd image.

And has any American-intervention ever been resolved amicably? Has it ever improved much of anything. or has it just pissed a bunch of people off? Why not try a new system of actively helping out. When Russia was in some dire financial straits in the late '70s, Carter agreed to ship them wheat in exchange for a change in their humanitarian policies- letting some of those who wanted to leave the country do so. It worked. There's no remunerative gain to be had out of this method, but if our aim was to truly help people out in need of helping, we could do so much better without wielding a single gun. Unfortunately, that is not our aim. Evil (which, yeah, I don't think really exists) cannot be countered by acting evil. People learn by example. Children learn that way. Adults learn that way. Species learn that way.


The U.S. leads the world (as it should) in foreign aid

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/08/30/us-foreign-aid-by-country_n_1837824.html



Really? I'm actually not allowed to go to the US to visit a friend in Boston, due to misdemeanour a long time ago. I didn't kill anybody!

I, and I say I am not welcome in your country, apparentely. Bin Laden was though, selling weapons to yous lot! The UK is slightly better in that aspect though.. Democracy?

My friend in Boston said "Hi Marko!

A very happy new year to you, too!

I'm sorry to hear that the US is holding a grudge about something. They did the same with John Lennon.

Have a great celebration in London. Probably a better place to be anyway. Or Glasgow, if you happen to be there. Definitely a great place to be!"

So how does your misdemeanor have any baring on the amount of U.S. aid given out? I don't understand your comment or how the two relate sorry.



I am not a threat to your society, or possibly I am?

If not barred from anything, then you're doing

The immigration laws have nothing to do at all with our foreign aid policies I'm still trying to wrap my head around the point your trying to make.sucks you can't enter the country I get that but what's that got to do with this topic.


Quite alot! I had to leave Australia due to poor Immigration policy. My wife and my then family. I was quite happy there.

Imagine being chucked out of a country? I had to leave before the authorities told me to (visa)...with my then girlfriend who is allowed to live here in the UK.

I had a good job and the future may have been bright.

I hated the racism.

I also think the EU is a good idea.

So Fuck!
Sin Agog
Sin Agog
2253 posts

Re: The News
Jan 30, 2015, 11:46
Anyone else feel like you've only got so much time to cram in reading, so you might as well spend that time reading a killer novel or history book instead? I mean, I remember nigh on every book I've ever read, but I can't say that 28th July 1994 newsday was a fucking doozy, easily in my Top 300. Keeping abreast of shit is a career unto itself. I know we all have some obligation to inform ourselves of the world's ins and outs, but I'm not entirely sure I want to. I think cutting off your connection to the world, focusing on your family- yours and your own- is usually the beginnings of some kind of lifelong conservatism, but I don't think I'm coming at it from that angle...at least I hope not. Also, I do think everything you read changes your inner-prose (or your writing style if you happen to be a writer), and the way the news is written is so smegging anonymous, so bogged down with the same set of idioms, I feel like I'm actively doing myself harm reading from even the supposedly more inspired broadsheets.
Robot Emperor
Robot Emperor
762 posts

Edited Jan 30, 2015, 14:23
Re: The News
Jan 30, 2015, 14:00
Sin Agog wrote:
Anyone else feel like you've only got so much time to cram in reading, so you might as well spend that time reading a killer novel or history book instead? I mean, I remember nigh on every book I've ever read, but I can't say that 28th July 1994 newsday was a fucking doozy, easily in my Top 300. Keeping abreast of shit is a career unto itself. I know we all have some obligation to inform ourselves of the world's ins and outs, but I'm not entirely sure I want to. I think cutting off your connection to the world, focusing on your family- yours and your own- is usually the beginnings of some kind of lifelong conservatism, but I don't think I'm coming at it from that angle...at least I hope not. Also, I do think everything you read changes your inner-prose (or your writing style if you happen to be a writer), and the way the news is written is so smegging anonymous, so bogged down with the same set of idioms, I feel like I'm actively doing myself harm reading from even the supposedly more inspired broadsheets.


Subscribe to the London Review of Books. Thorough and well written news. Too thoughtful to not inform you upfront what their angle is. Because the articles are so much longer than those found elsewhere you genuinely "know" what is at issue. An impression of parting the curtain, of seeing hidden machinations revealed, is palpable. Cannot recommend highly enough.

Hopefully still carried by the better funded libraries.

Edit: An example. Tariq Ali writing on the fallout from the Charlie Hebdo atrocity quoted extensively from an essay by Henri Roussel, the 80-year-old founder of Charlie Hebdo.

Henri Roussel wrote:
I don’t much like it when a head of state speaks of the dead as heroes. It usually happens because citizens have been sent to war and not come back, which is rather the case with the victims of the attack on Charlie Hebdo. The attack is part of a war declared on France, but can also be seen in the light of the wars France has got itself involved in: conflicts where its participation isn’t called for, where worse massacres than that at Charlie Hebdo take place every day, several times a day, where our bombardments pile death on death in the hope of saving potentates who feel threatened and are no better than those who threaten them … If Obama had not held Hollande back, he would have gone after Assad in Syria, just as Sarkozy went after Gaddafi in Libya … with the result we’re familiar with.[/quote]

Later is a quote from a personal angle. Roussel knew all the victims well and this made him both angry and sorrowful. He denounced Charb for his recklessness:

[quote="Henri Roussel"]He was the boss. Why did he need to drag the whole team into it? In the first attack on Charlie Hebdo in November 2011, the offices were torched after an issue was called ‘Charia Hebdo’. I quote what I said … in the Obs: ‘I think we’re ignorant and imbeciles who have taken a pointless risk. That’s all. We think we’re invulnerable. For years, decades even, we do provocative things and then one day the provocation comes back at us. It didn’t need to be done.’

It didn’t need to be done, but Charb did it again. A year later, in September 2012, after a provocation that put France’s ambassadors in Muslim countries in a state of siege … I asked Charb in the pages of the Obs: ‘To show, with the caption “Muhammed: A Star is Born”, a naked Muhammed praying, seen from behind, balls dangling and prick dripping, in black and white but with a yellow star on his anus – whatever way you look at it, how is this funny?’

I was sick of it. Charb told a journalist from Le Monde: ‘I have no kids, no wife, I prefer to die on my feet than to live on my knees.’ Cavanna, who feared death, wrote when he was Charb’s age: ‘Rather red than dead.’?? The reds are no longer red, the dead are still dead. Everyone has seen Charb’s last cartoon: ‘Still no attacks in France?’ And the jihadist in the cartoon, armed like the one who killed Charb, Tignous, Cabu, Honoré and the others, replies: ‘Wait! We’ve got until the end of January for New Year’s greetings …’ Have you seen Wolinski’s last cartoon? It ends: ‘I dream of returning to Cuba to drink rum, smoke a cigar and dance with the beautif
girls.’

Charb who preferred to die and Wolin who preferred to live. I blame you, Charb. Peace on your soul.
[/quote]

Sorry for the lengthy cut and pasting but I think this is the wisest and saddest comment on the whole mess. Thought it worth sharing
spencer
spencer
3071 posts

Re: The News
Jan 30, 2015, 15:19
Thanks very much for that. The writing here can be of that calibre, and Tariq has contributed sometimes https://newhumanist.org.uk
billding68
billding68
1016 posts

Re: The News
Jan 30, 2015, 18:00
Markoid wrote:
billding68 wrote:
Markoid wrote:
billding68 wrote:
Markoid wrote:
billding68 wrote:
[quote="Sin Agog"]I agree Pakistan and some aspects of Sharia law there are pretty effed up (though the country of Pakistan should never have been made in the first place- by a couple of English gents, over a dinner table). I just don't think it's up to us to put things in order. You can't be a moral force with guns in your hands. It's just a stupid, absurd image.

And has any American-intervention ever been resolved amicably? Has it ever improved much of anything. or has it just pissed a bunch of people off? Why not try a new system of actively helping out. When Russia was in some dire financial straits in the late '70s, Carter agreed to ship them wheat in exchange for a change in their humanitarian policies- letting some of those who wanted to leave the country do so. It worked. There's no remunerative gain to be had out of this method, but if our aim was to truly help people out in need of helping, we could do so much better without wielding a single gun. Unfortunately, that is not our aim. Evil (which, yeah, I don't think really exists) cannot be countered by acting evil. People learn by example. Children learn that way. Adults learn that way. Species learn that way.


The U.S. leads the world (as it should) in foreign aid

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/08/30/us-foreign-aid-by-country_n_1837824.html



Really? I'm actually not allowed to go to the US to visit a friend in Boston, due to misdemeanour a long time ago. I didn't kill anybody!

I, and I say I am not welcome in your country, apparentely. Bin Laden was though, selling weapons to yous lot! The UK is slightly better in that aspect though.. Democracy?

My friend in Boston said "Hi Marko!

A very happy new year to you, too!

I'm sorry to hear that the US is holding a grudge about something. They did the same with John Lennon.

Have a great celebration in London. Probably a better place to be anyway. Or Glasgow, if you happen to be there. Definitely a great place to be!"

So how does your misdemeanor have any baring on the amount of U.S. aid given out? I don't understand your comment or how the two relate sorry.



I am not a threat to your society, or possibly I am?

If not barred from anything, then you're doing

The immigration laws have nothing to do at all with our foreign aid policies I'm still trying to wrap my head around the point your trying to make.sucks you can't enter the country I get that but what's that got to do with this topic.


Quite alot! I had to leave Australia due to poor Immigration policy. My wife and my then family. I was quite happy there.

Imagine being chucked out of a country? I had to leave before the authorities told me to (visa)...with my then girlfriend who is allowed to live here in the UK.

I had a good job and the future may have been bright.

I hated the racism.

I also think the EU is a good idea.

So Fuck!



well all that really sucks,pity my brother is no longer in the U.S. (he's in Pakistan for the next 3-5 yrs)he may have been able to give you some tips on getting in . I haven't tried to leave the U.S. myself since my own legal trouble which I wont get into here (but have been discussed here in the past)so I know it can be devastating to families but you have to remember immigration in most countries is a big ugly broken machine.
Sin Agog
Sin Agog
2253 posts

Re: The News
Jan 30, 2015, 19:37
Ta, I'll have a rummage and see if it hooks me. I do almost think I'd prefer to just have a gander at a few succinct headlines over lengthy articles executed with the utmost empathy and probity. I spend enough of the day on time-draining ablutions and whatnot without adding more things I have to do every day. The trouble is, to reduce a story to a headline you have to make all the characters really thin on the ground (especially the female characters)...I just can't understand their motivations, though the writing style does admittedly have a sort of Hemingwayian or Basho-esque poetic brevity. ;) I will genuinely give both yours and spencer's suggestions a try. Would be nice, whenever I want to descend from my mountain cave, not to have to pick and choose from the usual soft-serve crapola.
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