At first glance it looks as if Americans have an abundance of news sources at their fingertips—at least the majority of us with easy access to the Internet. But as other public relations professionals may have noticed, sources of real news have shrunk substantially. Most of the news we see is repackaged from other sources, […]
Read More… from Concentration of news origination can lead to repeated errors in media
That thousands of people would wait in line five hours or more for a 10-minute artificial experience of rain falling befuddles me. But that’s what they’re doing. For days, the New York news media has been reporting that people are waiting five or more hours to walk through the Museum of Modern Art’s (MOMA) “Rain […]
Read More… from New York summer museum scene resembles an amusement park
McDonald’s created a sample budget for its employees to help them do better financial planning. The budget is so absurd in its assumptions and serves as such ready proof that Mickey Dee’s doesn’t pay its workers enough that you would almost swear it was satire—something Jonathan Swift might conjure. Other articles have pointed out the […]
Read More… from How does McDonald’s sample budget for employees reflect consumer ideology?
No one can see into the mind of George Zimmerman. A lot of the people disappointed in the not guilty verdict in his trial believe that he went out hunting someone, just like Bernard Goetz did in the New York subway system almost 30 years ago. But they’ll never be able to prove it. In […]
Read More… from In the Zimmerman case, the judicial system worked, but the law was wrong
The Oregon state legislature has passed a bill asking a state commission to consider an innovative plan to charge bachelor degree recipients from state schools no tuition or fees, but instead make them pay 3% of their salary for 24 years after finishing school. It’s called “Pay It Forward,” based on the turn-of-the-century melodrama of […]
Frequent readers know that one of my favorite hobby horses is to defend government solutions to social problems against the absurd claims that the free market will solve all problems better than the government. Most of the facts are in my favor: our wars have become disasters since we started to depend on mercenaries and […]
Read More… from Insurance companies may become quiet heroes in fight for gun control
The full-page ad by the Freedom from Religion Foundation in the July 4th edition of many national news media, including The New York Times (where I saw it) does a great job or reminding us that our founding fathers were not religious men; and that to the extent that they did have religious beliefs, they […]
Read More… from National atheist association shouldn’t resort to cheap rhetorical tricks
It’s hard to know what to wish for in Egypt. Morsi and the Muslim brotherhood have reneged on their promises to steer the country towards a middle course in social matters, such as women’s rights. What’s worse, the economy is a mess. On the other hand, Morsi is the legally elected head of state, thanks […]
Read More… from Our best move in Egypt is to back no one until there is a stable government
As the lead story of the latest issue of The Progressive Populist by Jill Richardson reminded us this week, the House of Representatives wants to cut $2.0 billion out of the annual food stamp budget. A bill in the Senate would limit the cut in the food stamp program to $400 million. Either set of […]
Read More… from Why do our elected officials want Americans to starve?
The best analogy I can find to characterize the 5-4 decision of the Supreme Court to strike down part of the Voting Rights Act is to imagine a patient with high cholesterol, probably because of poor nutrition. The doctor gives the patient a cholesterol-lowering drug and the cholesterol goes down to a safer level. The […]
Read More… from Bad Supreme Court decision in voting rights case won’t make difference in real world