Update [2005-12-11 15:6:58 by susanhu]: Since BooMan has gone to see the Eagles-Giants game today — and I suspect he’s going to look like one of those Eagles fans in the ESPN photo below (or, worse, he’ll be a popsicle by the end of the game) — I’m sneaking in here with an ode to Philly and its fans.
As SuperSoling points out, BooMan is a steadfast Giants fan, probably from growing up in New Jersey. BooMan himself has expressed concern over his surviving today’s game if he roots for the Giants: “I hope the Giants win 49-0. And I hope I don’t get killed or spray-painted green while I celebrate.”
Writes Matthew Graham for ESPN, in 2004 — with my emphases added as a paean to East Coast-type fans, who seem to be more fiercely loyal than the West Coast kind (or is them fightin’ words, West Coasters?):
I’m a dead man walking. After ranting about my disdain for L.A. “Faker” fans, I’ve been marked. […]
Besides the endless insults, many Laker fans (and haters) wanted me to follow through with my “threat” and put together the L.A.T. (Lakers Aptitude Test).
Now, before I test your Laker loyalty, I wanted to clarify a few points based on the avalanche of emails I received.
First, to all of those people who bashed me, calling me the stereotypical Philly thug … give me a break. Philly fans get the worst of it. We’re not all convicts looking to boo Santa Claus. Philly fans are like good wives — sure, we can be nags and pains in the butt sometimes, but at the end of the day we’re fiercely loyal and will go to hell and back for our teams.
Next, I respect good teams. Let’s be honest, the Lakers are the pinnacle NBA franchise. I acknowledge that fact. However, I never claimed I was a Laker fan. You can’t root for the Sixers and Lakers.
And for all of those loyal legions of Denzel Washington groupies who ripped me a new one for just mentioning his name and the word “fake” in the same sentence, please read this next part carefully. I know Denzel is from New York. Trust me, I love Denzel the actor. But, please, you can’t be taken seriously as a sports fan when you go on “The Tonight Show” couch and claim to be loyal to the Lakers and Knicks.Saying you’re loyal to the Lakers and the Knicks is like dating two sisters. Well, legal-age sisters.
That’s like dating two hot sisters at the same time. Sure it sounds cool, but it’s wrong. Plain and simple. (By the way, many Yankee fans were appalled that I gave Billy Crystal props after he sported a Mets hat in “City Slickers,” but that’s a whole other column for a whole other time.)
Read all of Graham’s essay — it’s great.
I love good sports writing. Don’t you? What games are YOU watching today?
And which teams are you loyal to, no matter what? (Track today’s scores via Yahoo’s NFL page.)
Below, Booman’s original Open Thread item:
it must be the most useless information war effort ever waged as nobody would exactly say we are popular in the Arab world.
Story at UNCONFIRMED SOURCES
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Whisky!
Don’t See Bush or Cheney Anytime Soon
Carrying the coffin of one of 2,142 of our own!
Pentagon lawyers are examining the release of photographs of the coffins of dead American soldiers repatriated from Iraq. April 2004“Treason doth never prosper: what’s the reason?
For if it prosper, none dare call it treason.”
▼ ▼ ▼ MY DIARY
In case it get’s overlooked in last night’s open thread, here’s Viveca Novak’s account of her conversations with Rove’s lawyer and with Fitzgerald.
The fact that a reporter discussing aspects of one of the biggest stories in DC with the attorney for one of the main suspects in that story can have the audacity to employ the “I can’t remember when this conversation took place” excuse is an astonishing insult to the intelligence of every thinking person and a sure sign that our main stream media is pretty much failing in it’s duty to the public in the most fundamental way.
The fact that the issue of when this particular conversation with Luskin is the main reason for it’s importance and that Ms. Novak conspicuously purports to be unable to recall specifically when it took place is a sure sign that our country is in big big trouble when our journalists can actually get away with this kind of absent-minded posturing and their editorial boards and employers support them.
I don’t buy Novak’s selective memory hole at all.
Reading the quote BooMan put up, my first thought was, yeah but how many articles did the Lincoln Group plant in OUR media? But then I remembered – the contract to do that was given to the Rendon Group, not the Lincoln Group. (It gets so hard to keep the propaganda factories straight.) From the Rolling Stone
Yep. As you say – “pretty much failing in it’s duty to the public in the most fundamental way.”
Interesting too that the Lincoln group got it’s first leg up in the propaganda trade via, you guessed it, the Rendon Group. And this, of course, suggests that there is a “propaganda central” entity deep within the Bush regime’s shady criminal empire.
This is quite a comprehensive article on all this too. Link here.
PS; I’m still working on a diary you suggested to me in another thread several days ago that concerned mind control. Link to our comment exchange here. Teacher Toni followed the next day with a diary on military recruiters in her classroom and how her students responded so well and this motivated me further towards writing about ways to develop better bullshit detectors in our minds as wa way of defending against and neutralizing the effects of the propagandists, swindlers, and deception professionals and thought-reform specialists in general. So it’s coming, but will take a bit longer.
Forgot to insert the link to TT’s diary referred to above. Here it is.
Looking forward to it.
For several years I taught a critical thinking class. It amazed me how sharp they got about a lot of things in just one semester. And this is in a community college, with older students.
I was skeptical when first asked to teach the course – I thought that people learned this early on, in adolescence probably best, and that it might be too late for folks in their late 20’s and 30’s (the majority of the students). I was quite happy to be proved wrong. My co-teacher and I used to laugh when we got about 2/3 of the way through the course and we’d say to the class – all right! – you’re fighting back when we stand up here and just tell you something! That’s exactly the point!
On the other hand – one assignment was for them to identify instances when they had been influenced by “media.” About half the class insisted that they were not influenced in any way – they were too smart, too skeptical, etc.
The problem is, I think, that it is very difficult – even when we say we know this – to fully appreciate how slanted the “information” we get from most of the media is. How things are presented (spin, etc), what is not covered, the effects of repetition, and so on. Not to mention that even when we say – they lie – deep down we don’t really believe how much outright lying there really is.
I remember a thread over at dKos where people were genuinely stunned to discover that op-ed columnists were not edited – that there was no fact checking of their columns. What I see often is people will read one of those columns in which a columnist describes something that happened and then argue a point about whatever it was. People will argue vehemently about the columnists conclusions and never question whether or not the incident happened the way it was described – or even happened at all.
Ack – going on too long. But bottom line – resisting propaganda is a lot harder than most people think it is. The thing that shocked me when I was reading The Hidden Persuaders is not that marketers were doing this stuff, I knew that in a general way. It was that I had to look at how much I – smart, savvy, skeptical me – had been gotten to by their techniques.
And every time the left says, “Aha! Now people will get it!” we are underestimating, to our peril, how strong and how effective the techniques still are. Better than ever, of course.
On some levels, it’s amazing to see how easily people can begin to detect instances in which people are trying to deceive them once they’ve become familiar wit a few simple concepts. (As an example, when you point out that it’s a common tactic for salespeople to attempt to have a favorable impression of whatever it is they want to sell you by comparing it to something less attractive or less valuable, once people understand that this is a tactic, a “weapon of influence” as Cialdini would call it, within a larger strategy of perception manipulation, they become almost immediately less susceptible to being “unduly influenced” by this technique.
On the other hand, it’s amazingly frustrating to realize that in many other ways we are intransigently predisposed to remain victims of clever manipulative tactics. Our reluctance to admit to ourselves, (let alone to anyone else), that we’ve been duped plays a very large part in this. Fraud investigators always say the biggest obstacle preventing them from catching and prosecuting swindlers is that so often the known victims refuse to come forward out of embarrassment or pride. They’re just not ready to admit that they were “stupid enough” to get fooled. (And often times the larger the swindle is the more resistance there is for a victim to come forward.)
One of the key principles involved in any program for helping people develop the capacity for guarding against undue influence is to dispel the very common myth that only fools and crazy people get tricked. The truth is, we are all vulnerable to different degrees at different times throughout the entire course of our lives. And understanding this fundamental truth right from the start goes a long way toward eliminating the propensity for the shame and embarrassment that in turn led to denial which in turn led to our being more vulnerable in the first place. Shattering this myth that we’re “too smart to be vulnerable” is an essential early step.
I think it’s also important generally to realize that 90% of political rhetoric is designed to deceive us in one way or another, and that generally, throughout society, there is an incredibly large amount of language across the entire spectrum of our common social discourse that’s designed to undermine critical thinking skills rather than to strengthen them.
There is so much more, and I hope I can finish a concise diary on this that won’t be book length and that I’ll be able to finish soon.
This is the biggest problem I think for many Americans concerning bushco and lying.(any administration) Americans are taught from day one we’re the best country in the world, we have a free press etc etc and even if people become cynical and believe politicians are lying most simply don’t even want to believe or refuse to believe that our press could possibly be actually lying to us or purposely not reporting or slanting the facts of any given situation. If that image is destroyed than we would be no better than other countries-or their idea of other countries and we/they simply can’t accept that idea.
If they start to question our status as a truly free country and free press than that means that they actually have to get off their asses and do something about it.
I think one really insidious nature of MSM is the whole breaking news stories…99% of the time the breaking story is wrong yet that is what people remember and not what usually comes out days/weeks(even years later) later as a semblance of the real facts and even then it may take years for real facts to come about on any given ‘breaking news story’. Usually why I never comment on any breaking story and what is being said…good example is the plane story where the air marshalls killed that passenger and the first story was that he had bomb, etc etc…
Even the most savy of people on the left do not want to admit that we too can be influenced by the continued manipulation of the media but I know I have to be on guard and question everything anymore…take nothing for granted..not even someone like Olberman.
H.L. Mencken isfamost for saying, among other things;
“Question everything!”
I subscribe to that notion as fully as I can, even though I recognize that the sheer magnitude of info that bobars us everyday makes it impossible to actually question everything. There are instances where we seem to have to place some trust in sorces of info we’ve determined to be reliable previously. I’m, not altoget ther comfortable with that , but I think it is a reality.
The other similar problem is that, at least in my experience, a lot of people don’t really think it’s important, or basically even care, whether they’re being lied to or not, as long as they’re being told some version of what they already want to believe anyway.
The Bush regime get’s a lot of mileage out of this propensity we have to be more willing to believe what we want to believe, regardless of the facts. All successful swindlers and con-men exploit this vulnerability to great effectiveness.
PREVIEW BEFORE POST, NOT VICE VERSA!
isfamost = is famous
bobars = bombards
sorces = sources, (not sorcerers, though we might be better served trusting some sorcerers than we are trusting these careless and duplicitous political media hacks.)
Umm….Susan?
Booman is a Giants fan.
I knew that … forgot … hope he survives!
Survives?….Hell, he’s gonna own the place.
Go Blue
How’s the fast rewrite? :):)
Blaming my cold and fuzzy wuzzy head.
I read at the Yahoo sports section that if Philly loses today, they’re out of the playoffs.
P.S. How about those Seahawks?!
Seahawks? You do have a fuzzy wuzzy head don’t you? ;o)
Seahawks survived the Giant’s suicide.
Where’s the honor? LoL
Giant’s suicide?!
Ha! I tried to collect a cigar from John Amato at Crooks & Liars (another diehard Giants fan) but he claimed we didn’t have a bet. (We didn’t, but I just wanted to give him a little hell.)
Please be nice to Seattle sports teams. We don’t ever do very well. But we do love ’em…. almost no matter what, almost.
Sorry Susan.
Really ;o)
Die hard Cubs and Bears fan. The first thirty four years of my life were spent just north of Chitown. Not much to cheer about these days. Steelers kicking Bears butt today…ugh! First time they have been on tv out here on the west coast this year and they failed to showup!
Living in the San Diego area now for over three years I will cheer for the Padres and the Chargers unless they are playing my Chicago teams. Had a hard time at Petco Park this summer watching the Cubs Padres match. My loyalties will always be with the Cubs first though.
I grew up with a MOTHER who stole the sports section of the newspaper first every day – and so I spent years addicted to professional team sports of most every variety. But a few years ago I got sick of the spoiled brat players who are employed by spoiled brat owners who continue to try to feed at the public trough to build their stadiums so they can continue their spoiled ways. I finally broke my addiction and have since payed almost NO attention to it all – other than to fight attempts to get public financing for stadiums with all my might. We should maybe develop a new bumper sticker:
It will be a good day when schools have all the money they need…
and sports teams have to hold a back sale to fund their new stadium.
All that doom and gloom does have a happy ending though. I have found a team that I can support and am having great fun as a sports fan again. Its the U of MN Women’s Basketball Team. I went to their game last night – and they are looking pretty good this year.
As a testament to how the women’s game (at least at the U of MN) is still different – the coach benched her best player this year “indefinitely” while she worked on getting her academic and personal life in order again. That decision is very well the reason they lost a game against New Mexico and went from a 10th place ranking to 14th. It was a risk AND the right thing to do.
I love it when you write about the women’s team. Glad they’re doing well, and that their coach has standards!
When we went to the women’s Univ of Wash basketball games, we often saw Seahawk players and Chip Hanauer (sp?), the great hydroplane driver.
It was the “in” thing to do for sports fans in Seattle. Hope it still is.
(And I always spotted the Seattle Times’ sports columnist sitting up high, watching … he went to every game, and loved to write about the women’s team.)
NOTE TO OUI: I reposted it because it had an image that was linked from a remote server, and it made the page very hard to load. I’m on DSL and it was slow … it must be impossible for dial-up users. We just can’t use images from remote servers in our comments and in our diaries. Sorry, Oui. But your words are here, and that’s what matters:
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I Was Banned For "Conspiracy" Diaries ..
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Glad to see the relevant information is now published at Daily Kos!
B I G S T O R Y
Brent Wilkes & Mitchell Wade – Bagmen in the Successful Plot to Take Over the United States and Enrich GOP Officeholders
I hope you are sitting down when you read this. The Duke Cunningham scandal goes much deeper than just the $2.4 million in bribes being reported by the media. There is a lot the media is not telling you.
The. Biggest. Scandal. Ever!
Phony Front Companies Cycle Millions Back to GOP! ◊ by Sherlock Google
Sat Dec 10, 2005 at 09:48:20 AM PDT
link is to story only » separately you can read the 350+ comments
Also diaries at dKos as creve coeur and new creve coeur
IMAGE «« click on pic for story
The Duke Of Hurl! ◊ by Connecticut Man1
Mon Nov 28th, 2005 at 11:12:22 PM PST
Mon Nov 28th, 2005 at 08:44:05 PM PST
Also @BooMan read my diaries on the corruption and spy network Israel – Mossad – AIPAC – Congressional Bagmen
(Archived diaries)
“Treason doth never prosper: what’s the reason?
For if it prosper, none dare call it treason.”
▼ ▼ ▼ MY DIARY
Airport Security by Israeli Rafi Ron ¶ IDF – Neal Sher & Burson-Marsteller
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Duke Cunningham Image from google –
Normally I check pixel size, however the postage stamp lists as follows:
http://images.google.nl/images?q=tbn:8VXofCFBNR4J:http://www.au.af.mil/au/goe/images/faces/03faces/c
unnin03.jpg
88 x 86 pixels – 2745 bytes
Didn’t check the true image size in article – wasn’t downsized properly – truly sorry!
http://www.au.af.mil/au/goe/images/faces/03faces/cunnin03.jpg
4412 x 4276 pixels – 732k
I have adsl telephone connection, diary opens instantly and didn’t notice effect.
“Treason doth never prosper: what’s the reason?
For if it prosper, none dare call it treason.”
▼ ▼ ▼ MY DIARY
The. Biggest. Scandal. Ever!
Phony Front Companies Cycle Millions Back to GOP! ◊ by Sherlock Google
Sat Dec 10, 2005 at 09:48:20 AM PDT
Sherlock Google may be writing on this now. But Cannonfire (and another Kossack. I forget who?) were covering this last week… And were asking for help to dig up as much as possible on this story because there are so many leads to follow. I guess Sherlock Google is as good a blogger as any if you are hoping someone will answer the call and start digging into a story that is really busting at the seams.
It is huge.
Could you write up a “for readers age 10 and under” version? I find it so hard to read those huge diaries …
if you’re in the mood …
wowser? I can try.
There is a reason they have “multiple bloggers” working on this. LOL
And the scary part is that it MAY be a template for across the board campaign funding scandals by the GOP. Or, at least, it would make sense that if they did it with Cunningham and all they would have likely replicated the scheme in many other campaigns.
for the 12 Days of Justice is up here!
Still lot’s of work to get done on this entire project that should launch…. UMMM? ERRR? Tommorrow.
Yikes! lol
hence my cranky sports mood…our football teams suck (squared), but at least the Warriors (basketball) are doing well, and the Sharks (hockey) are looking better since the Joe Thornton acquisition.
Was listening to the Niners debacle, have since switched to Miami/San Diego…good thing about both teams being on the road, we get at least one decent game on TV (meaning one that doesn’t involve either of our local disasters)…
Say, are the Seahawks ahead?
(Ducks quickly.)
At least the Niners are doing better than the Eagles last Monday — they’ve at least scored in the first half… 🙂
You’ve had your glory. Your rings. Your trophies … come on, give us a chance.
Darcy got this spam. Unlike all other spam, she thought I should see this. It sounds like something we can expect to hear about from the O’Reilly and Hannity crowd …
hey susan…yeah they like to resurrect this stupid scare story periodically to get the whacko christians all worked up….variations on this have been around for at least 30 years I think but never fails to get a rise out of the fundies. And of course is completely and absolutely not true also but when has that ever stopped them from shit like this.
And even it was true..so what.
http://www.snopes.com/inboxer/petition/gayjesus.htm
I’m watching Chargers/Dolphins. Not a super-exciting game so far but the Chargers at least are winning.
Eagles/Giants tied at last report.
Oh cool….. the Seattle game (brags) is kind of a snozer … but I just checked the Giants/Eagles game and it’s tied 17-17.
Maybe Boo has taken off his gloves and is chewing his nails….
Is anyone else watching Sleeper Cell on Showtime?
I need a Sleeper Cell buddy…. I’m so hooked.
Crap. Sprouls turned it over on the kick return and the dolphins now lead by one…phoeey.
If the score is indicative — and since I can’t watch the game — it sounds like BooMan got a good day to go to a game. It’s 23-20 Giants/Eagles with just over 2 minutes to go in the 4th.
And it’s in overtime! Who’d a thunk it could happen? 🙂
Whew!! Too close for comfort, again.
Deja Vu all over again.
Booman may yet live ;o)
Hey, he should have had you along for security detail, you big hunk, you.
Easy there Frisky ;o)
Let me guess. They’re football teams, right?
What do I win?
I thought it was the working title of Peter Jackson’s next movie.