American Madness

If you haven’t yet heard (though I am not sure how you could have missed it), Iran released pictures of a missile test they just conducted. The image they released was plastered all over newspapers world wide and showed 4 missiles taking flight simultaneously. The picture came from Agence France-Presse who said that they got the picture from Sepah News, they happen to be the media wing (or maybe propaganda wing) of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards. There is something a bit menacing about the image of four missiles heading skyward in a successful test… That is until you study the picture a bit more.

It turns out that the missile, 3rd from the left was Photoshopped in. the dust cloud under the missile comes from the right hand side, the missile it self is identical to the one on the left hand side (the NY Times had a little fun with Photoshop themselves highlighting this). Now the question being raised is: Who is responsible for this? (more…)

I am not a huge fan of Fox News, I feel that, for the most part, it is exploitive and uses scare tactics rather then actual journalism to get its point across. Fortunately I can get my news from about 200 other channels so I am not stuck listening to them blather on pushing their right wing agenda for Rupert Murdoch.

Unfortunately I catch little tidbits from and about Fox News that just get me all riled up. I hesitated to write up this most recent one since as the old saying goes “All news is good news” and folks might turn on Fox News or click on the website based on what I wrote (which is why I am leaving off any links to their website), but then there is the part of me who wants people to know about how ridiculous they actually are.

MediaMatters caught Fox recently in a segment they did on “Fox & Friends,” Fox News’ morning show. The hosts of the show were bad mouthing the New York Times, specifically reporter Jacques Steinberg and editor Steven Reddicliffe, claiming that despite all the good press Fox News has been getting recently, the NY Times was out to get them, writing a ‘hit piece’ on the “ominous trend” in Fox News’ ratings. They even went as far as showing Reddicliffe holding a leash of a Photoshopped poodle with the face of Steinberg. (more…)

Dear Judith,

Rarely, if ever, do I agree with your analysis or point-of-view. However, I think it is more important to consider all view points to an argument rather than to live in an echo chamber. Thus, every Friday, when the NYTimes.com “Opinion Today” e-mail hits my inbox, I always click through to your Domestic Disturbances column. And I read it. And I give it thought. And often times I comment.

Today was no exception, though it was exceptional.

In today’s posting “Pure Tyranny” you have drawn an unholy triangulation between hymen replacement surgery for Muslim women in France, the kidnapping Austrian incestor Josef Fritzl and an evangelical Father-Daughter Purity Ball in Colorado Springs. It was to my surprise, that your harshest criticism was reserved for the latter. Referring to a May 19 New York Times article about these events, you liken the idea of a purity ball to male domination over their daughters and wives. If I may, a quote from your piece:

“But there is nonetheless a kind of horror to their obsession with their daughters’ sexuality. And there is even greater danger to the fact that this particular aspect of the nationwide ‘abstinence movement’ has not been broadly denounced as the form of emotional violence against girls that it indisputably is.”

To which I ask, in all seriousness. Are you out of your mind?
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I just got an inside scoop on a new website: MostEmailedNews.

Started by Tim Brennan and Spencer Moy (the founders of Blinxi, “a social networking site for grown-ups”), it doesn’t look like much, but what you’ve got at MostEmailedNews (MEN) is just that, the most emailed news.

Most news websites have that little box somewhere on the first page telling you the top stories that people are sending to each other. MEN takes those boxes from a bunch of different news sources (ranging from sites like the NY Times and CNN to the Times of India and the St. Louis Post Dispatch) and puts them all togehter for you.

On display from the start you get the top 5 stories from 18 different sources, you can expand any of the sources to see the top 10 list or collapse it to make it disappear. It gives you a nice cross section of what people are emailing, weather it is the AP article “Tax rebates start showing up in bank accounts Monday (AP)” posted on Yahoo or “The Coolest D.C. Party is Still Lame” from Time magazine. Plus the site updates every 10 minutes keeping you up-to-date on everything.

In planning it out and picking sites Tim says they “thought of all the sites that we see linked to the most from blogs we read, and also to have a good mix of regions in the country.” Since they have just launched the site don’t be surprised to see a few updates/upgrades along the way, though even if it stays as it is now, that works fine too.

Elvis has been gone for a while. Having died almost 30 years ago you wouldn’t exactly expect to see new pictures of him popping up anywhere. Except that is exactly what’s going on.

This isn’t some vast conspiracy theory. No Elvis spottings at Wal-mart or descending from a UFO, but rather photos taken by George Kalinsky 36 years ago at Madison Square Garden. Kalinsky was asked to give a picture of an iconic New York Moment and chose Elvis at MSG. He was expecting to dig through his file and find 8 to 10 pictures from the night and instead discovered 4 rolls of film, close to 100 never before seen pictures of the King.

Besides the general excitement of this recent discovery the folks at Graceland are thrilled, calling one of the photos one of Elvis’s most iconic ever. The NY post even has a slide show of six of the images. I would expect to see them on display somwhere before the end of the year with a catch title like “The Lost Elvis Photos” or something along those lines.

Should we bring back the asylums of yesteryear?

Is the promise of modern medication exceeding its actual effectiveness?

These are questions that come to mind having read yesterday’s Freakonomics Quorum post by Stephen Dubner.

The column, How Much Progress Have Psychology and Psychiatry Really Made? is definitely worth reading in its entirety.

There is one section I would like to discuss and that has to do with a woman whose son was bipolar and who committed suicide when he stopped taking his medications. The writer says:

“Four years ago I lost a beloved son to suicide due to bipolar disorder. As devastating as this is, I do believe that the treatment he received increased his quality of life and chances for survival. His doctors and therapists were compassionate and concerned, working very hard to assess and adjust his treatments, and I came to respect the complexity of his condition and what they were trying to do on his behalf.

Is it possible he was in some ways a guinea pig in terms of the various medications he took? Perhaps, but I believe they were our only hope of giving him a chance in light of the seriousness of his condition and his previous suicide attempt. When he did complete suicide, we discovered that he had stopped taking his medications, so I don’t blame the medications, but the lack of them.”

Now as horrible as it may seem, I feel compelled to take issue with this lady. The problem which caused her son’s suicide was the fact that he stopped taking his medication. We have recently had a spate of mass murders in America committed by psychiatrically disturbed individuals who were mainstreamed in society because they were on medication. The problem that resulted in the killings has often been that the patient stopped taking the medication. (more…)

On Monday I posted a link to New York Magazine who had a recipe for a bacon infused Old Fashion and directions for making bacon infused Bourbon. I remain skeptical about Bacon infused bourbon. Regardless, showing themselves a little love, Grub Street, one of New York Magazines Blogs picked up the post and added into their daily email.

So now we have an AmericanMadness post linking to New York Magazine being linked from New York Magazine. They even give an oh-so-brief commentary on Bacon “We said it here first: Bacon has jumped the shark.”

Fantastic, loving the love-fest (and clearly contributing to it as I write this), but it goes a level deeper. I got an email from New York Magazine last night informing me about a video they shot of the bacon-infused bourbon and it’s creator Don Lee mixing up an Old-Fashion. They were addressing my concern (and gag -reflex) from the previous post where I said a bacon cocktail seemed a bit much:

I noticed you linked to New York’s bacon-infused old-fashioned recipe the other day. We shot a video demo of PDT’s Don Lee preparing the drink, which makes the bacon infusion a little easier to swallow.

So that makes this post an AmericaMadness post about a New York Magazine post about an AmericanMadness post about a New York Magazine post.

And of course I am going to link the video (watch the ball of congealed bacon grease bobbing in the bourbon, if that doesn’t make you want to try this, I don’t know what would).

The Pulitzer Prize Award winners were just announced and you can see the full list of winners over at their website, or below the jump. Notice that there was no award given this year for Editorial Writing. Also notice Bob Dylan got a Special Citation “for his profound impact on popular music and American culture, marked by lyrical compositions of extraordinary poetic power.”

Reading through the Pulitzer requirements it is interesting to read up on what the award for Editorial Writing is all about:

11. For distinguished editorial writing, the test of excellence being clearness of style, moral purpose, sound reasoning, and power to influence public opinion in what the writer conceives to be the right direction, in print or in print and online.

You would think in a year so ripe with topics that some one would stand out in the field. Maybe next year AM will have to toss its hat into the ring.

Here are a selection of quotes from some Pulitzer winners.

And a Reuters story by Andrees Latif about how he snapped his prize winning photo.

And The Winners are: (more…)

So, you might think this is going to be a post about boats and bacon or seafaring bacon or even bacon life preservers or something, but no, when I say going overboard, I mean too much bacon.

New York Magazine has a recipe for a Bacon-Infused Old Fashion from PDT. Part one of the recipe is making Bacon Bourbon.

Here is where I am torn: Bacon and Bourbon are two flavors that go really well together. I know this from mixing up some Bourbon Maple Syrup and pouring it all over my waffles and bacon. Great flavors. The richness of the bourbon complements the smokiness of the bacon really nicely.

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Videogames have been front and center in the news recently. They seem to have become the fall guy for all that is bad in society today. This comes from the belief that video game violence (in games like Grand Theft Auto, Army of Two, Doom and Manhunt) leads to increased violence in children.

The Columbine High School Massacre was linked to Doom partially because the mothers of the the two killers said that their sons liked to play Doom (and one mentioned the game in his suicide note).

This argument has been around as long as there have been violent video games. In 1976, a game called Death Race (inspired by the film Death Race 2000) was criticized and came under heat for allegedly encouraging vehicular homicide. Wikipedia has a history titled “Video Game Controversy” that touches on that particular debate.

While the anti-video game lobby has had proponents such as Jack Thompson making reasoned arguments for the correlation of video game violence and social decay, there hasn’t been a celebrity taking a principled stand against this argument (though, of course, many celebrities help promote video games).

Now, Stephen King is stepping up to argue against the theory that video-violence influences real violence. Though not a ‘gamer,’ King is well-spoken and his own novels, which make a strong emotional impact through their use of suspense and violence (and sometimes the suspense is psychologically more violent than the actual violent acts!) has come under fire in his career for contributing to social and moral decay. He has noticed the trend to turn pop culture into a whipping boy for all that is wrong with society, and used his monthly essay in Entertainment Weekly to fight against that movement.

What really makes me insane is how eager politicians are to use the pop culture — not just videogames but TV, movies, even Harry Potter — as a whipping boy. It’s easy for them, even sort of fun, because the pop-cult always hollers nice and loud. Also, it allows legislators to ignore the elephants in the living room.

You can check out his write up here.