Gannett Co., Inc. (NYSE: GCI), The McClatchy Company (NYSE: MNI) and Tribune Company have been turning our country into a police state. They think they are the only ones with the right to express oneself. I have conducted a 10-month investigation into Topix.com. Topix.com is rotten and I can prove it. I have been persecuted and censored on Topix since last August. Trolls built 16 attack forums there attacking me and my (liberal) blog, it forced me to shut down my blog. The trolls were stealing content from it, skewing it, and posting it as comments on Topix attack forums along with every form of verbal sadism.
I stayed away from Topix until January, when I was forced to go back there to blog in support of as parcel tax to help our public schools. So few bloggers were willing to face the trolls, yet the Right here, had made it central to their campaign. Via trolls, they were practicing TOTAL manipulated opinion - some trolls would be the nasty racists ones, some appear to be more "normal", yet spew disinformation, and the bully trolls would chase off real-person commentators. The trolls openly affiliate themselves with the tea party.
Take a look at these Topix threads and see for yourself. The Tea Party and Topix are good friends, heck the Tea Party is joining in the victory party with the trolls!:
*PUSD parcel tax appears headed for defeat
*PUSD parcel tax appears headed for defeat
*PUSD parcel tax appears headed for defeat
Check out this Topix thread. The trolls built this attack forum as part of their campaign to defeat the parcel tax, needed and necessary to save our public schools in times of severe cuts in funding. This thread was built as a Topix Poll and is called
*How will PUSD pass the parcel tax
I have been attacked there by trolls since January, they set on me at once. I have not let this stop me. But then Topix tried to stop me by shadow-banning* me, didn't catch it for two weeks. For two weeks I published comments that only I could see. I came back with a new name - I always use my real name and so I used my nick name - and started in again. They tried to shadow ban me again, I simply switched names again.
*Shadow-banning is an extremely unethical form of censorship Topix practices, you can see the comment you write, no one else can. The only way to know you have been shadow-banned, is for a friend on another computer to tell you.
This time they put me on moderated commenting, where my comments would take 5 minutes to appear. They would then alert the trolls, who were given time to prepare a response. By the time my comment published, the troll comment was attached to it.
The Topix trolls also stole my real-name user name - Virginia Olive Hoge - and posted comments with it. This is identity theft! Check out this Topix thread to see Topix name-stealing trolls in full operation:
*Pasadena City Council to hold eminent domain hearing Monday night
Topix practices censorship by encouraging, supporting and refusing to ban, bully-trolls.
Bully-trolls are on Topix threads to bully away commentators.
I saw one blogger for example, an honest one, who wrote after being bullied: "I am leaving and never visiting these threads again" - how many times is that happening daily across the Nation?
I saw another blogger, have his wife and family attacked by trolls, over and over again. He stuck it out, one of the very, very few who do.
I wrote about all I have learned on Topix about their troll encouraging practices - very devious ones, full of programming tricks - ones they do not make public and the Nation does not know about:
*Something way funky is going on over at Topix
With the twittering - these Pasadena Topix threads are now being twittered to the world - Topix has taken me off of moderation and so far, has published every recent comment. I plan to expose Topix to the world. They are so dangerous, it is a danger to our Nation to have free-speech so threatened. Topix is the bubonic plague of the internet!
Mainstream media - including Wired magazine - will not report on them, they have the same owners, it is up to bloggers to spread the word.
Thursday, June 24, 2010
Thursday, May 27, 2010
Shock Jocks
THE PASADENA NEW PROGRESSIVE
first published: September 21, 2008]The phenomena of the "shock jock" has often been ignored by the Left and the Media, for the level of danger as a tool of the Right (via the Media) they pose. Sarah Palin, as an astute political observer, knew this. That is why she openly appeared on the Alaskan version of the Howard Stern show, "The Bob and Mark Show". [see Bob's sexually-graphic self-written bio: here]
The internet has been proven to, a lot more quickly access buried, inner (even forgotten) prejudices. It does this by the nature of the extreme privacy it offers. So of course, the right-wing propaganda masters, saw this as the Golden Opportunity of a Lifetime (i.e. unregulated media!). It had the potential to be their "Roman Circus" as indeed, it truly became.
A prominent feature of the Roman Circus' were, blood baths as entertainment. This was where Christians (and plenty of other subgroups) really did get thrown into an arena, surrounded by the deafening cheers of the spectators. The house was always packed, and people were eating and often brought their kids. The Christian/subgroup person, was forced into the arena, where they fought a starving lion, often by hand.
The crowd was not there to cheer that Christian on, no way. The crowd was there to relish in the gore.
Nigel B. Crowther wrote of the Roman Circus, in his book Sport in Ancient Times:
"The circus became a political tool for the emperor to gratify his citizens... By supplying...the games to the large mass of unemployed people, the emperor hoped to control them by directing their emotions into the circus and away from their daily problems."
What better method of directing their emotions away from their daily problems, than via the shock jock, your very own "circus clown", who carries a message of hate. War-mongering, could also fall into this category. Hate-groups as well.
Hence the gaining prominence of legions of "Bobs" (and Aarons and Renes). "Bob" works! and Sarah Palin knows it.
Because "hate" as an emotion, is the equivalent of the gore-watchers. It filled - or more often, created - a base need. It is the emotion that allowed the spectators of the Roman Circus to cheer. This is why Hate is wrong. It is also why the Right tries to stoke it.
I Call This Vile Bullying
[first published: September 19, 2008]
This article appeared in the Pasadena Weekly, our "Alternative" weekly, which basically all of the journalistic community in Southern California has sanctified.
What I mean is, no investigation has been initiated, no investigative journalistic article* or essay, from the thousands of journalists in all of massive Los Angeles... [do you get the picture? its really big] has been written, (written down at least).
*except, by Susan Henderson
Not one elected leader spoke up, at least that I have heard of [I would welcome correcting on this].
Not one religious leader spoke up, at least that I have heard of [I would welcome correcting on this].
Not one artist spoke up, until now, at least that I have heard of [I would welcome correcting on this].
Not even enough criticism even has been issued, from the local "tongues" - i.e. "us"
of this open bullying of our public school district, PUSD, by the Pasadena Weekly as is evidenced by this 2006 article. "Violence of the tongue is very real..." wrote Mother Theresa, "wounding and creating bitterness that only the grace of God can heal".
This article is "violence of the tongue":
• wounding? PUSD - yes. The children of PUSD - yes as well.
• creating bitterness? in the community against PUSD? - yes as well.
mission accomplished.
I call this bullying. I call this writing bash journalism.
I also call this right-wing propaganda [the Right having viciously attacked public education all over the Internet (media!) to an alarming degree. Here "they" are attempting to demean public education via sensationalistic and abusive tabloid media.] This is part of a larger, Southland (and beyond) problem, of an over-abundance of "hate-media" flooding the airwaves.
I also call this, racism.
I also ask why a man who was suing the school district was used as a "source" for articles on the organization he was suing all along.
I also call this, unacceptable.
- - - - - - - - -
excerpts:
"That stuff is going to haunt him for the rest of his life. I just figured the more information people have, the better off we all are. People ought to know what they're getting," Amy said.
Amy made headlines earlier this week when he sued the district for not releasing documents regarding the PUSD's All-Star Marching Band in this year's Rose Parade.
Going through withdrawal
Clark takes himself out of the running for Cleveland schools CEO post
By André Coleman
Pasadena Unified School District Superintendent Percy Clark's harshest critic may be responsible for Clark staying in Pasadena, at least for the time being.
Clark has withdrawn his name as a candidate for the CEO position at the Cleveland Municipal School District after members of a search team there learned of a sex and drug scandal involving Clark when he worked in the Metropolitan School District of Lawrence Township in Indianapolis.
Rene Amy, who runs an Internet listserve on education, said he contacted the Cleveland Plain Dealer after reading stories in that paper about Clark's candidacy and told a reporter where to find stories about incidents that cost Clark his superintendent's position in Lawrence Township.
"I guess I should have kept my little mouth shut," Amy said.
Amy said he wasn't shocked that Clark had withdrawn his application for the job in Cleveland, a hiring competition in which Clark placed in the top five of 38 candidates.
"That stuff is going to haunt him for the rest of his life. I just figured the more information people have, the better off we all are. People ought to know what they're getting," Amy said.
Clark did not return calls for comment.
Schools spokeswoman Janet Pope Givens confirmed Clark has withdrawn his candidacy for the Cleveland job, but would not elaborate.
According to one source who asked not to be identified, Clark withdrew from the running shortly after a reporter with the Plain Dealer called Clark to inquire about a drug overdose he suffered following public exposure of his affair with a Lawrence school district subordinate. Clark worked in Lawrence Township from 1982 to 1996.
In Pasadena, Clark came under intense fire after the Board of Education unanimously voted to follow his recommendation to shutter four elementary schools to close a $6.5 million budget deficit. Layoffs and cutbacks were all part of a budget-cutting process sparked by a severe decline in enrollment. Then, in December, the Altadena Town Council had its Education Subcommittee investigate the possibility of seceding from the PUSD.
Marvin Edwards, a member of Hazard, Young and Attea Associates, the firm heading up the search for a new CEO for Cleveland schools, confirmed Clark's withdrawal, but declined to elaborate.
Two people who were interviewed by the executive headhunting firm said they spoke of the affair and the subsequent drug overdose, which was covered extensively by the Indianapolis Star.
Amy made headlines earlier this week when he sued the district for not releasing documents regarding the PUSD's All-Star Marching Band in this year's Rose Parade.
03-02-2006
© 2007 Southland Publishing, All Rights Reserved. Development and Hosting OurGig.com
This article appeared in the Pasadena Weekly, our "Alternative" weekly, which basically all of the journalistic community in Southern California has sanctified.
What I mean is, no investigation has been initiated, no investigative journalistic article* or essay, from the thousands of journalists in all of massive Los Angeles... [do you get the picture? its really big] has been written, (written down at least).
*except, by Susan Henderson
Not one elected leader spoke up, at least that I have heard of [I would welcome correcting on this].
Not one religious leader spoke up, at least that I have heard of [I would welcome correcting on this].
Not one artist spoke up, until now, at least that I have heard of [I would welcome correcting on this].
Not even enough criticism even has been issued, from the local "tongues" - i.e. "us"
of this open bullying of our public school district, PUSD, by the Pasadena Weekly as is evidenced by this 2006 article. "Violence of the tongue is very real..." wrote Mother Theresa, "wounding and creating bitterness that only the grace of God can heal".
This article is "violence of the tongue":
• wounding? PUSD - yes. The children of PUSD - yes as well.
• creating bitterness? in the community against PUSD? - yes as well.
mission accomplished.
I call this bullying. I call this writing bash journalism.
I also call this right-wing propaganda [the Right having viciously attacked public education all over the Internet (media!) to an alarming degree. Here "they" are attempting to demean public education via sensationalistic and abusive tabloid media.] This is part of a larger, Southland (and beyond) problem, of an over-abundance of "hate-media" flooding the airwaves.
I also call this, racism.
I also ask why a man who was suing the school district was used as a "source" for articles on the organization he was suing all along.
I also call this, unacceptable.
- - - - - - - - -
excerpts:
"That stuff is going to haunt him for the rest of his life. I just figured the more information people have, the better off we all are. People ought to know what they're getting," Amy said.
Amy made headlines earlier this week when he sued the district for not releasing documents regarding the PUSD's All-Star Marching Band in this year's Rose Parade.
Going through withdrawal
Clark takes himself out of the running for Cleveland schools CEO post
By André Coleman
Pasadena Unified School District Superintendent Percy Clark's harshest critic may be responsible for Clark staying in Pasadena, at least for the time being.
Clark has withdrawn his name as a candidate for the CEO position at the Cleveland Municipal School District after members of a search team there learned of a sex and drug scandal involving Clark when he worked in the Metropolitan School District of Lawrence Township in Indianapolis.
Rene Amy, who runs an Internet listserve on education, said he contacted the Cleveland Plain Dealer after reading stories in that paper about Clark's candidacy and told a reporter where to find stories about incidents that cost Clark his superintendent's position in Lawrence Township.
"I guess I should have kept my little mouth shut," Amy said.
Amy said he wasn't shocked that Clark had withdrawn his application for the job in Cleveland, a hiring competition in which Clark placed in the top five of 38 candidates.
"That stuff is going to haunt him for the rest of his life. I just figured the more information people have, the better off we all are. People ought to know what they're getting," Amy said.
Clark did not return calls for comment.
Schools spokeswoman Janet Pope Givens confirmed Clark has withdrawn his candidacy for the Cleveland job, but would not elaborate.
According to one source who asked not to be identified, Clark withdrew from the running shortly after a reporter with the Plain Dealer called Clark to inquire about a drug overdose he suffered following public exposure of his affair with a Lawrence school district subordinate. Clark worked in Lawrence Township from 1982 to 1996.
In Pasadena, Clark came under intense fire after the Board of Education unanimously voted to follow his recommendation to shutter four elementary schools to close a $6.5 million budget deficit. Layoffs and cutbacks were all part of a budget-cutting process sparked by a severe decline in enrollment. Then, in December, the Altadena Town Council had its Education Subcommittee investigate the possibility of seceding from the PUSD.
Marvin Edwards, a member of Hazard, Young and Attea Associates, the firm heading up the search for a new CEO for Cleveland schools, confirmed Clark's withdrawal, but declined to elaborate.
Two people who were interviewed by the executive headhunting firm said they spoke of the affair and the subsequent drug overdose, which was covered extensively by the Indianapolis Star.
Amy made headlines earlier this week when he sued the district for not releasing documents regarding the PUSD's All-Star Marching Band in this year's Rose Parade.
03-02-2006
© 2007 Southland Publishing, All Rights Reserved. Development and Hosting OurGig.com
World Wise?? Updated
[first published: Septemeber 18, 2008](Images: Reporters Without Borders handcuff graphic on Notre Dame, ad from the 9/15/08 issue of the New Yorker, handcuff graphic again in large city)
The latest issue of the New Yorker, dated September 15, 2008, clearly illustrates the extent to which this great Liberal magazine has declined.
The above is a full-page ad for Morgan Stanley from the issue [which looks something like their Absolute Vodka ads, the association no doubt intended]. The latest news on Morgan Stanley is here: which reports that Morgan Stanley is losing a lot of money and is weighing a merger with Wachovia Corp. or several other banks [which ones, who knows?].
Not one word in the entire magazine mentions the financial Volcano about to erupt from beneath the sidewalks of the New Yorker's namesake, identity and hometown.
[Note - the following paragraph refers to an article that was removed by FreeRepublic after the post was published. The article (minus the "Freeper" community comments) was also published here in The Atlantic Monthly ]
Instead, they publish yet another China "bashing/bullying" (New Yorker style) article by Peter Hessler (The Home Team) who, surprise surprise, is yet another journalist publishing on FreeRepublic, a blog so conservative that Jim Jordan, a strategist for independent Democratic groups opposed to Bush, calls it "a bastion of right-wing lunacy". [see Hessler's article on FreeRepublic here. - Note, article removed by FreeRepublic]
With much guile, Hessler criticizes the Chinese for being overly afraid someone was going to hang a political banner up on the Great Wall and photograph it to send the image all over the world, via the Internet, as bad publicity.
That already happened! on facades as historic as Notre Dame (see images) - executed by Reporters Without Borders. They had reason to be afraid it was going to happen again. Can you see why I believe that this issue has been used as a cover-up by the Media for crimes happening in our own backyard?
But why should the New Yorker participate in that?
A Day For Crying
[first published: September 11, 2008]
by Virginia Hoge, 9-11-08
As a 9/11 eye-witness, it is impossible to speak about this event today, its 7th year anniversary, without speaking of the HORROR that has followed in its wake.
I do not blame the conspiracy theorists (although I do not believe them) for saying that 9/11 was "planned".
It sure seems like it! I mean just LOOK at the unbelievable advancement of the Right - riding happily, and with great evil, on the "coat-tails" of this historic event.
They took FULL advantage of it many ways including:
Starting a disastrous and deadly war that has murdered hundreds of thousands of innocent people including children. It has maimed for life hundreds of thousands of others, leaving pained "walking shells" to face the rest of their lives (and often they are young), filled with suffering.
This is HORRIBLE!!
This is so sad and so sick, I could (and possibly should) stop right there, but I am not going to. Because I was there.
I was standing on the corner of 6th Avenue and 11 Street, the morning of September 11, 2001. I had just dropped my kids off at their school, PS 41 in Greenwich Village from our home in Brooklyn (yes, we took the train each morning and yes, this was stupid!!). A lady at the front door of the school who I hardly knew said "a plane just hit the World Trade Center". "Yeah, right" was my impression. But walking towards the corner, I noticed a crowd looking South, on this especially clear New York Fall day. I (of course) joined the crowd of gawkers - who normally would be looking at an automobile accident. But this was no automobile accident.
A large, airplane-shaped hole filled almost the entire span of the Northern face of the north World Trade Tower (Tower 1). Black smoke poured furiously out of that hole, from a building that rose as high up into the sky as fireworks. The smoke headed straight East, driven in a line by a strong wind, forming an upside-down "L" shape in the cerulean horizon .
Now some people actually left the scene and sensibly went to work. But I (never having been sensible) was riveted to my spot, and stayed. Suddenly, the South Tower burst into flames, right around the middle of the building. Now I wish I could say that this somehow looked like something I had never seen before, but this is not true. It looked exactly like a Hollywood explosion (which, I am sure, gives the conspiracy theorist's yet more "fuel" as I said, I cannot blame them.).
"Ok" I said to myself "get the kids out of school" and headed back to the school to retrieve my kids. Their teachers released them quickly, seeing my ashen face. But in true teacher fashion, calmly. Grabbing each of their hands (my son was in 1st grade, my daughter in 4th) we quickly walked towards the train while the clearly visible, smoking TWO massive towers rose high above us. Now, it seems like those kids would have been crying, but that is not the case. Children, Thank God, are sheltered in early life by a self-obsession that conceals the World's evils from them, at least to some extent.
They could have cared less, and were happy to be leaving school early. We grabbed an F train, knowing it would avoid lower Manhattan. (Later, I heard stories of people coming up from the C train entrance to falling bodies). We caught the last train out of there.
Now I would have expected to be saying here that the train was filled with crying, hysterical people, but that was not the case. The train had the usual heedless, half-asleep and extremely guarded people you always encounter on a subway train. I was babbling to my kids (scared half out of my wits!) and I am sure people over-heard me, but all I got was the one eye peaking up, then a second later, down - the usual!!
By the time we reached Brooklyn, Tower 1 had just fallen.
Climbing to the top of the (steep) Greene Ave exit, Fort Greene Brooklyn exit, gypsy cab drivers were parked all along Flatbush with groups of people gathered round, heads hung low, car radios blaring through open car doors, listening to the bad news.
Speaking of bad news, the Right has advanced so far into our local media, am I the only one scared? Nationwide also, but here, and here we can still do something about it.
Which brings to to my conclusion (enough already, right?). This event has been completely misinterpreted by the Right. I was there. The minute that tower exploded, I KNEW what this meant, this and nothing else, that this was where Hate leads.
This was where Hate leads. The perpetrators of 9/11 HATED the U.S. enough to die and kill for that hate. Why is this? Because Hate is the parent of Violence.
This is the message of 9/11, that Hate is wrong! Not to create MORE Hate, which is exactly what the Right has done in countless ways.
And on that morning 7 years ago, not so long from the very moment I am writing this, I knew instantly that my (and our) responsibility is to fight Hate, and not the hate we find over-seas, but the hate we find right here in our "own backyard".
That is where the redeeming message of 9/11, lies still buried.
Lets unearth it, in this, the year 7.
by Virginia Hoge, 9-11-08
As a 9/11 eye-witness, it is impossible to speak about this event today, its 7th year anniversary, without speaking of the HORROR that has followed in its wake.
I do not blame the conspiracy theorists (although I do not believe them) for saying that 9/11 was "planned".
It sure seems like it! I mean just LOOK at the unbelievable advancement of the Right - riding happily, and with great evil, on the "coat-tails" of this historic event.
They took FULL advantage of it many ways including:
Starting a disastrous and deadly war that has murdered hundreds of thousands of innocent people including children. It has maimed for life hundreds of thousands of others, leaving pained "walking shells" to face the rest of their lives (and often they are young), filled with suffering.
This is HORRIBLE!!
This is so sad and so sick, I could (and possibly should) stop right there, but I am not going to. Because I was there.
I was standing on the corner of 6th Avenue and 11 Street, the morning of September 11, 2001. I had just dropped my kids off at their school, PS 41 in Greenwich Village from our home in Brooklyn (yes, we took the train each morning and yes, this was stupid!!). A lady at the front door of the school who I hardly knew said "a plane just hit the World Trade Center". "Yeah, right" was my impression. But walking towards the corner, I noticed a crowd looking South, on this especially clear New York Fall day. I (of course) joined the crowd of gawkers - who normally would be looking at an automobile accident. But this was no automobile accident.
A large, airplane-shaped hole filled almost the entire span of the Northern face of the north World Trade Tower (Tower 1). Black smoke poured furiously out of that hole, from a building that rose as high up into the sky as fireworks. The smoke headed straight East, driven in a line by a strong wind, forming an upside-down "L" shape in the cerulean horizon .
Now some people actually left the scene and sensibly went to work. But I (never having been sensible) was riveted to my spot, and stayed. Suddenly, the South Tower burst into flames, right around the middle of the building. Now I wish I could say that this somehow looked like something I had never seen before, but this is not true. It looked exactly like a Hollywood explosion (which, I am sure, gives the conspiracy theorist's yet more "fuel" as I said, I cannot blame them.).
"Ok" I said to myself "get the kids out of school" and headed back to the school to retrieve my kids. Their teachers released them quickly, seeing my ashen face. But in true teacher fashion, calmly. Grabbing each of their hands (my son was in 1st grade, my daughter in 4th) we quickly walked towards the train while the clearly visible, smoking TWO massive towers rose high above us. Now, it seems like those kids would have been crying, but that is not the case. Children, Thank God, are sheltered in early life by a self-obsession that conceals the World's evils from them, at least to some extent.
They could have cared less, and were happy to be leaving school early. We grabbed an F train, knowing it would avoid lower Manhattan. (Later, I heard stories of people coming up from the C train entrance to falling bodies). We caught the last train out of there.
Now I would have expected to be saying here that the train was filled with crying, hysterical people, but that was not the case. The train had the usual heedless, half-asleep and extremely guarded people you always encounter on a subway train. I was babbling to my kids (scared half out of my wits!) and I am sure people over-heard me, but all I got was the one eye peaking up, then a second later, down - the usual!!
By the time we reached Brooklyn, Tower 1 had just fallen.
Climbing to the top of the (steep) Greene Ave exit, Fort Greene Brooklyn exit, gypsy cab drivers were parked all along Flatbush with groups of people gathered round, heads hung low, car radios blaring through open car doors, listening to the bad news.
Speaking of bad news, the Right has advanced so far into our local media, am I the only one scared? Nationwide also, but here, and here we can still do something about it.
Which brings to to my conclusion (enough already, right?). This event has been completely misinterpreted by the Right. I was there. The minute that tower exploded, I KNEW what this meant, this and nothing else, that this was where Hate leads.
This was where Hate leads. The perpetrators of 9/11 HATED the U.S. enough to die and kill for that hate. Why is this? Because Hate is the parent of Violence.
This is the message of 9/11, that Hate is wrong! Not to create MORE Hate, which is exactly what the Right has done in countless ways.
And on that morning 7 years ago, not so long from the very moment I am writing this, I knew instantly that my (and our) responsibility is to fight Hate, and not the hate we find over-seas, but the hate we find right here in our "own backyard".
That is where the redeeming message of 9/11, lies still buried.
Lets unearth it, in this, the year 7.
The Pasadena Weekly Sticks Its Foot In Its Mouth, Again
[first published: September 4, 2008]
Since no one's managed to shut me down, yet, I might as well get on with it.
So many recent issues of the Pasadena Weekly have contained half-truths and outright lies about PUSD, I could be writing a lot more columns just to keep up with them. None of this is acceptable, and it is fair to say that this publication abandoned their journalistic ethics somewhere down on Route 66.
But out of all of the ugliness issuing forth from "our" Pasadena Weekly recently, nothing rang more false [nor contained such hidden racism], than this sanctimonious article:
Hate by the numbers
http://www.pasadenaweekly.com/cms/story/detail/hate_by_the_numbers/6246/
Black/brown tensions likely to rise as hate crimes climb across the board
By Andre Coleman and Kevin Uhrich
08/07/2008
First of all, lets check out the subject(s) of this article: Black/brown participation in hate crimes.
Black/Brown participation? Come on!
This paper has a lot of nerve. For years they have been the perpetrators of hate crimes against black/brown people, by their nasty, biased, right-wing extremist sourced, untrue and even profane, coverage of PUSD - schools filled with black and brown children!
When you point right-wing extremist sourced misinformation the way of children in the pages of your paper, thats called Hate!
I wrote here about the double-standards for right wing hate speech in general, an article by Glenn Greenwald.
excerpts:
"...hate-speech needs to be given a correct label, and that label is "Violence":
"Violence of the tongue is very real—sharper than any knife, wounding and creating bitterness that only the grace of God can heal."
- Mother Theresa
....our local media focuses on "gang violence" - and in the process, condemns people of color.
There is so much hate and vulgarity in the very blogs that our media link to and source,
imagine for one second if these blogs were run by Black Power groups or Latino activist groups, the hate on them would be IMMEDIATELY censored.
Yet the fact that hate-blogging is a white, middle class phenomena, protects them."
I could list more articles in the Pasadena Weekly sourced by Rene Amy, but here is an especially nasty one.
This article openly chronicles and applauds Rene Amy's dirty trick victory over Dr. Percy Clark, former superintendent of PUSD:
Clark takes himself out of the running for Cleveland schools CEO post
By André Coleman
excerpt:
"Pasadena Unified School District Superintendent Percy Clark's harshest critic may be responsible for Clark staying in Pasadena, at least for the time being.
Clark has withdrawn his name as a candidate for the CEO position at the Cleveland Municipal School District after members of a search team there learned of a sex and drug scandal involving Clark when he worked in the Metropolitan School District of Lawrence Township in Indianapolis.
Rene Amy, who runs an Internet listserve on education, said he contacted the Cleveland Plain Dealer after reading stories in that paper about Clark's candidacy and told a reporter where to find stories about incidents that cost Clark his superintendent's position in Lawrence Township.
"I guess I should have kept my little mouth shut," Amy said."
[are Rene Amy and the Pasadena Weekly "having fun" here? at the sake of our public schools? Hoo-yah?]
Since no one's managed to shut me down, yet, I might as well get on with it.
So many recent issues of the Pasadena Weekly have contained half-truths and outright lies about PUSD, I could be writing a lot more columns just to keep up with them. None of this is acceptable, and it is fair to say that this publication abandoned their journalistic ethics somewhere down on Route 66.
But out of all of the ugliness issuing forth from "our" Pasadena Weekly recently, nothing rang more false [nor contained such hidden racism], than this sanctimonious article:
Hate by the numbers
http://www.pasadenaweekly.com/cms/story/detail/hate_by_the_numbers/6246/
Black/brown tensions likely to rise as hate crimes climb across the board
By Andre Coleman and Kevin Uhrich
08/07/2008
First of all, lets check out the subject(s) of this article: Black/brown participation in hate crimes.
Black/Brown participation? Come on!
This paper has a lot of nerve. For years they have been the perpetrators of hate crimes against black/brown people, by their nasty, biased, right-wing extremist sourced, untrue and even profane, coverage of PUSD - schools filled with black and brown children!
When you point right-wing extremist sourced misinformation the way of children in the pages of your paper, thats called Hate!
I wrote here about the double-standards for right wing hate speech in general, an article by Glenn Greenwald.
excerpts:
"...hate-speech needs to be given a correct label, and that label is "Violence":
"Violence of the tongue is very real—sharper than any knife, wounding and creating bitterness that only the grace of God can heal."
- Mother Theresa
....our local media focuses on "gang violence" - and in the process, condemns people of color.
There is so much hate and vulgarity in the very blogs that our media link to and source,
imagine for one second if these blogs were run by Black Power groups or Latino activist groups, the hate on them would be IMMEDIATELY censored.
Yet the fact that hate-blogging is a white, middle class phenomena, protects them."
I could list more articles in the Pasadena Weekly sourced by Rene Amy, but here is an especially nasty one.
This article openly chronicles and applauds Rene Amy's dirty trick victory over Dr. Percy Clark, former superintendent of PUSD:
Clark takes himself out of the running for Cleveland schools CEO post
By André Coleman
excerpt:
"Pasadena Unified School District Superintendent Percy Clark's harshest critic may be responsible for Clark staying in Pasadena, at least for the time being.
Clark has withdrawn his name as a candidate for the CEO position at the Cleveland Municipal School District after members of a search team there learned of a sex and drug scandal involving Clark when he worked in the Metropolitan School District of Lawrence Township in Indianapolis.
Rene Amy, who runs an Internet listserve on education, said he contacted the Cleveland Plain Dealer after reading stories in that paper about Clark's candidacy and told a reporter where to find stories about incidents that cost Clark his superintendent's position in Lawrence Township.
"I guess I should have kept my little mouth shut," Amy said."
[are Rene Amy and the Pasadena Weekly "having fun" here? at the sake of our public schools? Hoo-yah?]
Obama
[first published: August 28, 2008](image: Obama screenprint, available at http://obeygiant.com/post/obama)
I have read much of the liberal commentary and the very valid fears of Obama's running mate and both of their murky statements about the war/future wars. These are not to be taken lightly, and Biden had better not be another Cheney!
That said, last night was history. Obama is America’s first African-American presidential nominee from a major political party. Millions of people are really happy today and they have a right to be!! 300 years of slavery, 100 more of Jim Crow "laws" enforcing segregation. The Civil Right movement happens, and people are all-too-happy to say "its all over now", not acknowledging that Martin Luther King was just the very beginning of change to centuries-old institutions, and more importantly, centuries-old entrenched prejudices.
Obama's victory represents a groundbreaking change to attitudes in this country about Race, and that is a victory for our country.
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