POLITICAL MUSIC!

Conor Oberst is one of my favorite musicians and he is very involved with politics. His band, Bright Eyes, went on the "Vote for Change" tour with Bruce Springsteen and REM before the 2004 presidential election and performed at a series of Obama rallies in 2008.

 

Conor has never been shy about sharing his views and criticisms of the government. In 2005, he performed his controversial Bush protest song "When the President Talks to God" on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno and subsequently had cancellations from 2 other late night talk shows he was scheduled to perform on.

 

This year he has gotten very involved with the border control/illegal immigration situation. He teamed up with the ACLU and put on "The Concert for Equality" in Nebraska, his home state, which raised money for a lawsuit against the city of Fremont, Nebraska for an ordinance the city passed on June 21, 2010 banning the hiring of or the rental of properties to illegal immigrants. The song above, "Coyote Song", is about two lovers separated by the Mexico-United States border. All proceeds from the song will go directly to the Sound Strike Fund, which provides needed resources to families caring for children in Arizona whose parents are detained or have been deported, immigrant rights organizing and legal defense.

Cronkite and Murrow Would be Proud: The Uncovering of the Atlanta Public School Cheating Scandal

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution asked the state attorney general Friday to investigate Atlanta Public Schools for withholding a critical report largely confirming the newspaper’s findings last year that test results in a dozen schools were highly suspicious.

The AJC asked Attorney General Thurbert Baker to determine whether the district’s denial in July of a request for the report was a criminal violation of the Georgia Open Records Act.

The newspaper’s complaint calls the district’s refusal to produce the report a “willful and premeditated violation.”

“The purpose of the Open Records Act is to prevent government officials from burying information in this way,” said Tom Clyde, an AJC attorney.

District spokesman Keith Bromery said Friday that officials were reviewing the complaint and would not comment.

The complaint comes amid federal and state probes into the falsification of hundreds of Atlanta students’ scores, with dozens of GBI agents questioning teachers and administrators at schools across the district.

Breaking the open records law is a misdemeanor and carries a $100 fine.

The statistical analysis by University of Pennsylvania researchers surfaced last week after Channel 2 Action News and the AJC obtained copies from a non-profit education advocacy group.

The report largely validated the newspaper’s October 2009 findings on statistically improbable gains or drops at a dozen Atlanta schools on that spring’s state Criterion-Referenced Competency Tests. The newspaper found the odds of such drastic changes were astronomical and could signal cheating.

In response, Atlanta Superintendent Beverly Hall announced that two independent experts would scrutinize the district’s test results.

In February, the district released a report by one of the experts, consultant Douglas Reeves, that concluded the gains were consistent with academic practices he observed at the schools — eight of which he visited on a single day during a whirlwind tour.

But the district made no announcement when the second expert, University of Pennsylvania Graduate School of Education Dean Andrew Porter, completed his report in May.

At the time, the district was in the thick of a state-ordered investigation into additional revelations that high numbers of wrong answers had been erased and corrected on CRCTs given at 58 schools.

The AJC requested the Porter report July 19. District officials responded July 22, saying, “A copy of the Porter report does not exist in the district.”

Last week, however, district spokesman Bromery said Hall read the report in May. He said district officials gave it to investigators hired to scrutinize the erasure findings.

It would have been “inappropriate,” he said, to release the report once it became part of the investigation.

According to state law, public officials cannot turn over documents to private individuals to avoid disclosing them.

The AJC also argued that the investigation is not a valid reason to keep the Porter findings secret.

“The circumstances indicate the Porter report was withheld by APS at a time when Superintendent Hall did not want it to reach the light of day,” Clyde said.

“A public official should be very concerned by a possible criminal violation of the Open Records Act. If it is proven, it’s effectively a finding that the official is intentionally concealing information for the very citizens that they are supposed to serve.”
-Atlanta Journal Constitution

As we have discussed in class, muckraking and journalistic investigation is mostly dead. We no longer have anyone like Edward R. Murrow or Jack Anderson who make it their job to investigate and call the government out when something does not seem right. Also lacking, are objective and trust-worthy broadcasters like Walter Cronkite, David Brinkley and Peter Jennings. They were journalists who America could trust, but sadly they have been replaced with talking heads, like O’Reilly and Olbermann, who are clearly biased and only want to promote one side of any argument.

I came upon a ray of hope, however, when I heard about the cheating scandal of the Atlanta Public Schools. The Atlanta Journal Constitution (AJC) did their journalistic job and uncovered this scandal themselves and brought it to the public’s attention. They were the first to raise questions about the improbable test scores in December, 2008. The newspaper showed analysis of implausible gains on core skill tests that were taken by students in the spring and then again in the summer. Then in the fall of last year the newspaper struck again, this time over student’s scores on the CRCT that they had taken that spring. The CRCT scores from twelve Atlanta schools showed implausible gains and drops on the test which is considered the most crucial measure of academic achievement for grades 1 through 8. The AJC also brought allegations about graduation rate calculations of the Atlanta Public Schools, which did not seem to add up. Then, when the superintendent withheld a report largely confirming the newspaper’s findings about the extremely suspicious CRCT results, the AJC did not hesitate to ask the state’s attorney general to investigate the school system.

This is the kind of journalistic investigation that I like to see. They researched a story they found suspicious and then brought about public awareness. On Saturday, the Atlanta Public School Superintendent Beverly Hall announced that she will be stepping down next June and both the state and U.S. Attorney’s office are launching investigations into the issue. Cronkite and Murrow would be proud.

http://www.ajc.com/news/atlanta/ajc-files-complaint-with-748329.html?cxtype=rss_news


http://www.ajc.com/news/atlanta/atlanta-superintendent-beverly-hall-747762.html

The Real World: Alaska

Willow Palin, the 16-year-old daughter of former Alaska governor Sarah Palin, wrote multiple Facebook posts containing homophobic slurs such as "faggot" on Sunday night, according to TMZ.

The web site reports that Palin's teenage daughter wrote the comments on Sunday night, when her mother's television show "Sarah Palin's Alaska" premiered on TLC. According to TMZ, a classmate of one of Palin's children published a Facebook update claiming that the show "is failing so hard right now."

Willow Palin reportedly unloaded on the student, calling him "so gay" and "such a faggot." She later demanded that the student "quit talkin shit about my family." According to screenshots obtained by TMZ, the 16-year-old called another commenter on the Facebook thread a "low life loser" and lashed out at multiple others, writing, "Sorry that all you guys are jealous of my families success and you guys aren't goin to go anywhere with your lives." -Huffington Post

Does Willow Palin realize that her family's reality TV show is on The Learning Channel (TLC) not MTV?

Why in the world would someone who knows that their every move is being watched have an out lash like this on the Internet and even go as far as to use gay slurs? It really is hard to fathom this kind of ignorance. I am sure that Sarah raised her better than that…right?

Her mother may be the next President of the United States and she is cussing and calling someone “such a faggot” on her own Facebook account? I understand that she was upset that people were reacting harshly to her family’s reality TV show, but come on! When you are in the spotlight you are always going to have critics. It just comes with the territory. You are a public figure and therefore as we have discussed in class you have less protection against hateful speech. You are only giving the "haters" more pleasure by lashing out and giving them the attention they want anyway.

I would expect this kind of behavior from let’s say…Snooki off of Jersey Shore, but not the daughter of a former Alaskan Governor and Vice Presidential nominee. Are there any boundaries anymore? Has the Real World house become no different from the White House? With political figures now having reality TV shows I am not really sure that there is…

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/11/16/willow-palin-facebook-posts_n_784585.html

MSNBC: Behind on the Times?

NEW YORK (AP) — MSNBC says Keith Olbermann will be back on the air Tuesday, ending his suspension for violating NBC's rules against making political donations after two shows.
MSNBC's chief executive Phil Griffin said late Sunday that after several days of deliberation, he had determined that two days off the air was "an appropriate punishment for his violation of our policy."
The left-leaning cable network's most popular personality acknowledged donating $2,400 apiece to the campaigns of Kentucky Senate candidate Jack Conway and Arizona Reps. Raul Grijalva and Gabrielle Giffords. NBC News prohibits its employees from making political donations unless an exception is granted in advance by the network news president. In this case, Olbermann's bosses didn't know about them until being informed by a reporter.
Left unanswered is the question of why Olbermann would do something he undoubtedly knew would be provocative, or whether he was trying to make a statement against NBC's policy. He did not immediately return an e-mail message seeking comment Sunday.
On his Twitter page, Olbermann wrote: "Greetings from exile! A quick, overwhelmed, stunned THANK YOU for support that feels like a global hug."
The incident raised questions about how long-standing rules designed to preserve the appearance of objectivity for news organizations fit at a time that cable news networks, most prominently Fox News Channel and MSNBC, have increased their popularity through prime-time programs that dispense with any notion of impartiality.

This story goes right along with what we have been discussing in class recently, media objectivity. Is objectivity a lost cause in today’s society? Do people even want to hear objective new stories anymore? These are important questions and stories like this bring to light the need to answer them. 

Everyone knows that when you turn on MSNBC, you are going to be greeted with a liberal slant. Just the
same as when you turn on fox news, you are going to get a conservative lean. Why then is it an issue for a news reporter on one of these stations to donate money to the party aligned with their political views…the same views that they express vehemently on their show everyday?

People want to have their views reinforced by the news channel they are watching. An extreme conservative is not going to tune into Olbermann’s “Countdown” and a liberal is not going to watch The O’Reilly Factor. Our society is changing, the way we view media is changing, and networks can either get with it or get left in the dust. News Corp., the parent to fox news, gave $1 million to the Republican Governors Association and NBC won’t allow Olbermann to donate $2,400 to three Democratic candidates?

I was glad to hear that MSNBC ended Olbermann’s suspension after just two shows and I hope that they will change their ancient company policies ASAP and maybe take a few pages from Murdoch’s playbook this time!

http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5jAwQNqYTGXw5vlF84xAWa8fddScg?docId=09852e5ab4bb4ed491cd6c84c6edd00d

WikiLeaks Founder Will Not Be Leaking Info About His Personal Life

WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange walked out of an interview with CNN in London.
Assange, who was being interviewed to discuss the 400,000 pages of documents WikiLeaks released about the Iraq War, grew upset when interviewer Atika Shubert asked about his personal legal issues. Assange was investigated in Sweden on charges of sexual abuse that were then dropped, but the investigation was re-opened shortly thereafter.
"This interview is about something else," Assange told Shubert. "I'm going to walk if you're going to contaminate us revealing the deaths of 104,000 people with attacks against my person."
Assange repeatedly threatened to walk off, calling Shubert's questions about his personal life "completely disgusting."
As Shubert persisted, Assange apologized, removed his mic and walked off the set. -Huffington Post

In my opinion, Julian Assange did the right thing in this situation. He was being personally attacked during an interview that was supposed to be centered on much more important issues. Those issues, including our nation’s safety and the preservation of The Constitution’s “right to free speech”, are important to America and all its citizens. Assange’s personal life is not what this interview was supposed to be about or what it should be about. This story leads back to the issue of soft news vs. hard news. This reporter was trying to turn this interview into an episode of Entertainment Tonight and in doing so was avoiding the real issues at hand. Her “tough” questions ought to be about the reasoning and logic behind the releasing of potentially life-threatening and dangerous documents to the world, not questions about his inner-office relationships and character flaws. Please save that stuff for The View and stick to your guns CNN.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/10/23/julian-assange-walks-out-_n_772837.html

The Lesser of Two Evils: The Georgia Governor’s Race

After Nathan Deal won the Republican primary just two months ago, anyone would have thought he had the governor’s race in the bag. He had overcome his biggest hurdle, Karen Handel, and with a win of less than one percent of the vote, gotten very lucky. His luck stopped there though and only a couple of weeks after the win it came out that he has about five million dollars of debt that he left off the disclosure forms. This comes after the fact that he was already involved in an Office of Congressional Ethics investigation, regarding reports that he was pressuring Georgia officials to keep a state vehicle inspection program that benefited his automobile salvage company. This is the same automobile salvage company that he has an unpaid $2.5 million dollar loan out on.  Now the whole race has been turned on its head and is becoming a race about choosing the lesser of two evils. No one thought Roy Barnes had a chance in hell and now he is only trailing Deal by about 4 points. The press has christened the race, “King Roy vs. Shady Deal.” Whilst giving Deal the titles of, “one of the fifteen most corrupt members of Congress” and “Georgia’s Christine O’Donnell.”

Both sides are now engaged in a pretty nasty ad war. Deal has been trying to put Barnes in the same boat as Obama and has his friend Dale Peterson, the former candidate for the Alabama agriculture Commissioner, helping him out. Peterson claims in one TV ad that Barnes sounds like the president when he is going around apologizing for all his past mistakes as former governor. Barnes, on the other hand, has ads calling Deal, “as slippery as a bag of snakes” and too corrupt even for Congress. Barnes claims in one ad that he requires no on the job training, while Deal is trying to make Barnes’ former governorship seem like a nightmare. Both are mudslinging like nobody’s business and making national headlines while doing so. Everyone from the New York Times to the Associated Press is watching this election very closely.

Does Deal deserve this large of a backlash for his financial woes? Well it all depends on who you talk to. The Republican’s are saying that the recession is to blame for his losses and that these financial hardships are only making Deal more sympathetic to business owners who are going through the same things in these tough times. He was just a father trying to help his child out like any parent would. While the Democrat’s are using the argument that if his personal finances are so bad then there is no way he can run the state’s finances and if he is lying about personal finances then what else could he be lying about. A good parent might pay for a child’s college tuition, not sign for a $2 million dollar loan. The Democrat’s seem pretty confident in their argument though, since the Democratic Governor’s Association just poured $1 million into Barnes’s campaign.

This is a time when the Republican’s should easily be sweeping elections and filling offices. Especially in a red state like Georgia, and yet Deal has still managed to put the governorship in question. I am sure that the Republican’s are kicking themselves in the behind now for not electing Karen Handel in the primaries. This race could have been a cake walk for them if she had won the vote. Sure, you cannot go back and change what happened but when you are involved in a race that should be as easily won as this one, maybe you should go with a safe candidate instead of one who was already involved in an ethics investigation.  Deal was just a ticking time bomb. Democrats are the party in control and the country is in a recession with the president’s approval rating on a downward spiral and the unemployment rate at 9.5%. Yet, the Republican’s STILL cannot secure the governor’s race in a RED state. That is just embarrassing.

This is going to be an interesting race to watch and I know I will definitely be at the polls on November 2^nd to cast my ballot. I honestly do not know who will come out the winner. Will more scandals be unearthed before Election Day? Nothing would surprise me at this point…. The winner is going to come from who can get the 13% of undecided voters to side with them. As I said before, I think that a lot of people, including the undecided voters, feel that this race is about choosing the lesser of two evils. Go ahead and pick your poison, Georgia.

http://www.ajc.com/news/georgia-politics-elections/ad-war-in-georgia-594812.html

Vs.

Free Liu Xiaobo!

OSLO (AP) — Imprisoned Chinese dissident Liu Xiaobo won the 2010 Nobel Peace Prize on Friday for using non-violence to demand fundamental human rights in his homeland. The award ignited a furious response from China, which accused the Norwegian Nobel Committee of violating its own principles by honoring "a criminal."

Chinese state media immediately blacked out the news and Chinese government censors blocked Nobel Prize reports from Internet websites.

The people of China cannot even celebrate Liu Xiaobo’s great achievement today…. because they don’t even know about it! His name has been expunged from all forms of media. The so-called "Great Firewall" that the Chinese Government has created is being used in full force to censor any searches involving the “Nobel Peace Prize” or “Liu Xiaobo”.

Xiaobo received the Nobel Peace Prize because of his brave fighting for democracy and human rights in China and is being praised as a hero by many. Yet, China put him in jail for this very behavior. It is all pretty insane to think of here in America, but there are plenty of people who would rot away in jail to get the kinds of freedoms that we take for granted on a daily basis.

These are the exact types of media controls and regulations that the U.S., as a democratic society, is so fortunate to not have to deal with. When we talk about things like the Fairness Doctrine and news channels being required to promote good citizenship in our class lectures and debates, this is the perfect example of just how bad things could get if we started down any of those slippery slopes. This is definitely not the first time China has used this type of censorship, Google anyone? This, however, is just another example of why we need to strive to keep our media free and keep the government’s hands out of our news! Long live the First Amendment and the right to free speech!