Saturday, January 24, 2004

RHINO'S WEEKEND BLOG - January 24th & 25th QUOTE OF THE WEEKEND "If anyone said we were in the radio business, it wouldn't be someone from our company. We're not in the business of providing news and information. We're not in the business of providing well-researched music. We're simply in the business of selling our customers products." - - Lowry Mays (CEO of Clear Channel) And winner of the 2003 "P.U.-Litzer Prize" for "Media Mogul of the Year" (see the Weekend Bottom Line) THIS WEEKEND IN HISTORY Jan 24, 1970 -- It's announced that John Lennon & Yoko Ono have shaven their heads to commemorate the start of Year One for Peace. Jan 25, 1984 -- INFACT (Infant Formula Action Coalition) wins settlement with Nestle Corporation after a seven year boycott. WEB SITE OF THE WEEK: Ben Cohen Demystifies the U.S. Government's Budget The TrueMajority OREO video... featuring an animated Ben Cohen. OREO Video ACTION OF THE WEEK: 500 Pairs of Army Boots in Chicago Federal Plaza Although they drew the attention of only a few people rushing to lunch on a frigid January afternoon, more than 500 pairs of empty Army boots placed side-by-side Wednesday in downtown Chicago were a visible reminder of U.S. soldiers killed in Iraq... Army Boots in Federal Plaza THEATRE TIP OF THE WEEK:  Tim Robbins' 'Embedded' to open in NYC About U.S. reporters & soldiers during the Iraq war, will open Feb. 24 at the Public Theater in NYC. Robbins will direct the play, as he did last fall in Los Angeles, but will not star in it. New promotion for the play describes it as "a ripped-from-the-headlines satire about the madness surrounding the brave women and men on the front lines in a Middle East conflict."...   Source: Editor & Publisher http://www.editorandpublisher.com/eandp/news/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=2071293 FUNNIEST SHRUB BASH OF THE WEEK: "Dishonest Dubya" Lying Action Figure He lies like a bastard. With Pretzel-wretching action. http://homepage.mac.com/webmasterkai/kaicurry/gwbush/dishonestdubya.html 2nd FUNNIEST SHRUB BASH OF THE WEEK: "The WMD Countdown" http://www.pixelred.com/wmd KEEP OF OF TROUBLE TIP OF THE WEEK: Don't Carry Almanacs The FBI is warning police nationwide to be alert for people carrying almanacs, cautioning that the popular reference books covering everything from abbreviations to weather trends could be used for terrorist planning... http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/2003/12/30/MNG7A40E7V1.DTL RHINO HERE: My "TV TIP OF THE WEEK" is to catch Good Morning, America this Monday, January 26th (ABC at 7:00 a.m. local time) when they'll be featuring an important documentary exposing the national travesty of incarcerating juveniles with long-term sentences in adult prisons. Entitled, "JUVIES", the documentary is the creation of  Leslie Neale, John Densmore and Traci Odom. Formerly the drummer of The Doors, John & his wife Leslie & their partner Traci have dedicated 5 years to bringing this issue to the forefront. One example of a young life being destroyed by cruel & unusual sentences is the story of Duc Taís, who at age 16, was given a 35 year to life sentence in a California prison for a crime in which no one was injured and he didn't fire a weapon. Facts At age 16, Duc was the driver of a car from which a gun was shot. No one was injured. Duc had no record and had never been arrested before Originally he was charged with Assault with a Deadly Weapon The D.A. was replaced by a prosecutor from the hard-core gang unit, who escalated the charges to 1st Degree Attempted Murder. Duc did not shoot the gun. He was accused of handling the gun, but there was no physical evidence (fingerprints or gun-shot residue)linking him to the gun. The only impartial witness to testify did not see Duc handle the gun. Duc lost his appeal to the CA Appeals Court, but the Court ruled the boy in the back seat (who brought the gun) would get 20 years knocked off his sentence due to a technicality.   Duc will not even come up for parole until the year 2031 Because of the severity of his sentence he was sent to a level IV in 180 yard, the toughest unit in prison reserved for the most hard-core inmates. You can help send a message to Governator Arnold, that the practice of incarcerating juveniles with long-term sentences in adult prisons is unreasonable, unjust and dangerous to the future of our society. SIGN THE PETITION AT    : http://www.petitiononline.com/ducta/petition.html For more about the case of Duc Taís, GO TO:    http://www.justiceforduc.com 9:17:03 AM    comment

THE WEEKEND BOTTOM LINE - Announcing The P.U.-Litzer Prizes for 2003 Announcing The P.U.-Litzer Prizes for 2003 By Norman Solomon, AlterNet , December 22, 2003 The P.U.-litzer Prizes were established more than a decade ago to give recognition to the stinkiest media performances of the year.   As usual, I have conferred with Jeff Cohen, founder of the media watch group FAIR , to sift through the large volume of entries. In view of the many deserving competitors, we regret that only a few can win a P.U.-litzer. And now, the 12th annual P.U.-litzer Prizes, for the foulest media performances of 2003: Media Mogul of the Year - Lowry Mays, CEO of Clear Channel While some broadcasters care about their programming, the CEO of America's biggest radio company (with more than 1,200 stations) admits he cares only about the ads. The Clear Channel boss told Fortune magazine in March: "If anyone said we were in the radio business, it wouldn't be someone from our company. We're not in the business of providing news and information. We're not in the business of providing well-researched music. We're simply in the business of selling our customers products." Liberating Iraq Prize - Tom Brokaw Interviewing a military analyst as U.S. jet bombers headed to Baghdad on the first day of the Iraq war, NBC anchor Brokaw declared: "Admiral McGinn, one of the things that we don't want to do is to destroy the infrastructure of Iraq, because in a few days we're going to own that country." "The More You Watch, The Less You Know" Prize - Fox News Channel According to a University of Maryland study, most Americans who get their news from commercial TV harbored at least one of three "misperceptions" about the Iraq war: that weapons of mass destruction had been discovered in Iraq, that evidence closely linking Iraq to Al Qaeda had been found, or that world opinion approved of the U.S. invasion. Fox News viewers were the most confused about key facts, with 80 percent embracing at least one of those misperceptions. The study found a correlation between being misinformed and being supportive of the war... READ THE REST: http://www.alternet.org/story.html?StoryID=17433 "RHINO'S BLOG" is the responsibility of Gary Rhine. (rhino@kifaru.com) Feedback, and requests to be added or deleted from the list are encouraged. SEARCH BLOG ARCHIVES / SURF RHINO'S LINKS, AT: http://www.rhinosblog.info RHINO'S OTHER WEB SITES: http://www.dreamcatchers.org (INDIGENOUS ASSISTANCE & INTERCULTURAL DIALOG) http://www.kifaru.com (NATIVE AMERICAN RELATIONS VIDEO DOCUMENTARIES) Articles are reprinted under Fair Use Doctrine of international copyright law. http://www4.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.html All copyrights belong to original publisher. Tell a friend about Rhino's Blog 8:17:30 AM    comment

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