Recently in current events Category

I got a call last Wednesday (6/2/2010) from a "Central Research". Normally I'd dismiss this call as simply a telemarketing call, but at the time I actually had a bit of time to spare, so I entertained the call.

Very glad I did. Very interesting call.

The caller was conducting a "survey" regarding my "TV watching habits" and assured me the call would only take a few minutes. 25 minutes later, I had to dismiss the caller so I could get to my class.

I'm not going to regale you with all the questions of the call. To basically summarize, the caller was a survey taker, but his questions were pointedly pro-Fox, and his comments explaining the questions were also pointedly pro-Fox. Sprinkle in a few Tea party movement references. A few examples:

• What cable news network show do you normally watch during primetime programming, from 6pm -10pm? Fox News, CNN, Headline News, MSNBC?


• Which primetime cable TV program/personality are you more likely to watch? The O'Reilly Factor, Anderson Cooper 360, On The Record with Greta Van Susteran or Countdown with Keith Olbermannn?


• What's the likelihood that you would watch The O'Reilly Factor for your primetime news source? Rate this on a scale of 1 - 5.


• Which primetime cable TV personality do you find most appealling? Bill O'Reilly, Chris Matthews, Anderson Cooper, Greta Van Susteran, Sean Hannity, Keith Olbermann?


• Which primetime cable news station's coverage do you consider to be most 'fair and balanced'? (author's note:: hysterical. just because I don't watch Fox, doesn't mean I don't know their alleged slogan.)


• What Can _______ (Bill O'Reilly, Sean Hannity, Greta Van Susteran) do to improve their show and get you to watch?


• Was I registered as a Democrat or Republican?


• Rate your approval of the current administration on a scale of 1 - 5.


• Which primetime cable news channel are you most likely to turn to for election coverage in 2012?

Yes, you get exactly where that's headed.

That's roughly the order, although there were many additional questions. It was interesting, especially given the survey taker's comments in between my responses, such as the fact that I never watch Fox news, primarily due to it's conservative bias. He did try to slip in an occasional one-liner to suggest Fox doesn't have conservative bias. Riiight. There were also a few questions/comments about the Tea party and which news stations I associated the Tea party movement with o_O.

So, what the hell does this have to do with you? I try not to mentally masturbate through this blog, so I'm always conscious that if you're reading, what I write should relate to you. Well, Central Market Research, Inc is a NYC company that has been doing this for a while. Even pre-2008 election. An interesting comment I found on a no-call list website, from September 2008:

These calls are ILLEGAL PUSH POLLING: SPREADING LIES ABOUT OBAMA, here's the truth from someone that answered a call from that number:

I Just Got Push-Polled on Obama and Israel

It turned out to be a political poll. And not just any old poll.

From there, the focus became more explicitly political--and, again, perfectly typical. Was I Democrat or Republican? Etc.

But soon enough I understood why they were asking about Carter. After going over some more issues and confirming the fact that I was likely to vote for Obama, the caller made a series of rather pointed inquiries. Would it affect my vote, he said, if I knew that

* Obama has had a decade long relationship with pro-Palestinian leaders in Chicago

* the leader of Hamas, Ahmed Yousef, expressed support for Obama and his hope for Obama's victory

* the church Barack Obama has attended is known for its anti-Israel and anti-American remarks

* Jimmy Carter's anti-Israel national security advisor is one of Barack Obama's foreign policy advisors

* Barack Obama was the member of a board (sic) that funded a pro-Palestinian chartiable organization

* Barack Obama called for holding a summit of Muslim nations exlcuding Israel if elected president

Is it possible to get push-polled outside of "election time"? Seems they're starting early, possibly with a focus on the incumbent seats for the 2010 elections. And yes, the next calls will probably be to your phone, to get you to tune in ;)

I can't tell you to avoid a specific number, since my call came in unpublished. The no-call website has a few numbers listed in the 212 area code, but that's from 2008.

So, this is the next step in political marketing propaganda. Telemarketing for fun and votes? #LeSigh.

*sigh* my people make me really tired sometimes...

From a discussion board I frequent, someone shared a story about President Obama being stopped and frisked by the NYPD. Now, I'm avoiding linking the story for this post, because I'm not sure whether the story is true, but it was published on 5/18/2010 - so if you're interested, you can find it.

Here's my issue with the whole thing though. Someone posted the story (sans sources, authors or hyperlinks) to a discussion board, and the conversation ensued. Comments regarding how "things haven't changed", "we all look alike", "brown" people are devalued in this country, and "racial profiling" followed.

The problem with this, IMHO, is that this story seem a bit implausible. The NYPD frisked the POTUS, without interference by the Secret Service? Or the NYPD kept the Secret Service at bay, while they frisked the POTUS? Or, maybe the POTUS was walking outside of Secret Service range, and the NYPD took it from there?

Yeah, see....that sounds like a bit much, right? So, I asked the person who originally shared the story the source and got....*crickets*. Hm...that's curious.

Well, my fingers know how to Google too, so I did. And here's what I found (click the pic for a larger image):

O-kaaaay. I spy what I think may be the problem. The NY Times, by most accounts, would be considered a legitimate news source (my editorial comments about multinational corp news media are topics for another post). So - the NYPD frisks Obama headline appears on the NY Times website. Hm - might that give this headline credibility? But the NY Times uses Blogrunner, and blogrunner crawls both news sources and blogs for keywords (including Ray Kelly). Blogrunner's crawler comes across this headline, pulls the RSS feed and voila - it's published on the NY Times' website.

A closer glance (and a couple of clicks) and I've got the actual post, which is a blog post. The blogger may be a legitimate blogger, and may run factual stories from his local community that have yet to hit major news-wires. Completely within the realm of possiblity.

But what makes my fingers hit keyboard - what truly sticks in my craw about this, is the willingness of my people (black people) to take an uncorroborated story about the POTUS and run with it, as an example of the static state of race relations in this country. It screams "this is how it's always been - and this is how it will always be. We'll always be profiled, oppressed, victimized - so of COURSE that story is true..."

*screeeech* pump the brakes. Are we still really going with the whole "it's the oppresion, mayne - it's always the oppression" theory? Still?

It's 2010, people. One of the things that drives me nuts about social media the internet is people's ability to use it without gaining any knowledge from it. In other words, we're not getting smarter for having it available. We're getting dumber. Less analytical. Thinking less critically.

Steps 1-6 of internet usage: Sort. Filter. Analyze, Disregard. Rinse. Repeat.

Seriously @ my people (brakka ppl). Steps 1-6 above should be followed for any story you stumble across on the internet. Again - this story may be true, but I'm waiting for corroboration. This ran May 18th. It's now May 23. And no one's picked this up yet? o_O

We have to be more discerning & analytical, and stop getting out backs up about any slight we collectively come across. Pick your battles (and choose well).

It's an end of an era...

I've been blogging since November 24, 2001

Much of it has been personal. VERY personal. So personal, in fact, that it's become burdensome. If you're wondering why I'm stopping - that's it, in a nutshell. The joy I once felt in writing in this space is gone, for more reasons than I care to recount. But I am busy, things have changed - and I'd rather spend my time doing things, than talking about doing them.

My only goal when I started blogging/writing was to make some sense of what I was going through. And to tell the truth.

Blogging has evolved dramatically in the last 9 years, and with it....comes the time to ask myself if I need to evolve also. The answer is yes.

So, with that - it's time to go.

I want to thank you - those of you that have taken the time to read my stuff, and give me feedback, comments, email me, etc. I appreciate all that you've shared with me, positive and negative.

And no, I haven't stopped writing completely - it's just time for the journey to take a new direction.

This leg is over.

Now on to the next.....

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