This further supports my theory that all lawyers are, in fact, surrealists. If you want to abide by torture laws, simply reclassify a practice as “not torture.” A full episode of a tv show, online with paid advertising? That’s a “promo”, and the writers don’t get paid.

On a video service that includes advertisements.

You need to watch two Frontline productions: Gangs Of Iraq and Endgame. Both deal with latter-day Iraq and how the US invasion created conditions for an insurgency to blossom into civil war. Frontline is how I nurture my cold ire between new Adam Curtis documentaries. At night I dream Adam Curtis, Frontline producers, Sy Hersh […]

Bill Moyers, seasoned journalist and documentarian, interviews neo-satirist Jon Stewart of the Daily Show. If you’ve ever wondered about what goes on in Stewart’s head when interviewing John McCain or the perspective that informs his comedy and work, this is a must-see. Stewart is honest, insightful and not for one moment precious. It’s […]

You may recall The Century Of Self, Adam Curtis’ documentary about the PR/psychoanalytical/marketing complex and how that method of persuasion eventually reached government. In The Trap: What Happened To Our Dream Of Freedom, Curtis explores how John Nash’s model of human behavior known as game theory came to dominate the worldview of cold war […]

It’s not often that a culture jam is able to rip so effectively into destructive eco-practices and wretched marketing tactics. While Kleenex wants to celebrate the cathartic, cleansing practice of crying into their tissues, those very same tissues come from 100% virgin wood fiber from the Canadian Boreal forests (aka “The Lungs Of North America”). […]

Psycho-nauts everywhere can now say they’ve seen everything as entheogen author and “New Edge” shaman, Daniel Pinchbeck, was interviewed by Stephen Colbert in - of all places - a humbly constructed nativity scene on The Comedy Central set. After a silent moment of “communing” with Pinchbeck, Colbert asked him, “Are you high right now?” […]

Now I don’t want to hear one thing about me not being festive for Christmas. I’m festive across relative dimensions of time and space. Click the image or the jump to watch.

Oh yeah, we need this like another media consolidation. It’s a patent application for technology to constrain viewers from changing channels while an ad displays.

The apparatus (270) and method comprises an advertisement controller (270) in a video playback device (150) that (1) prevents a viewer of a direct (non-recorded) broadcast from switching channels when an […]

TV sucks.  I know.  But I’ve got a soft spot in my heart for Aaron Sorkin shows, because the guy is just so freakin’ smart.  On the surface, his latest effort, “Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip,” is a fast-paced workplace drama occurring behind the scenes of a live TV show (not unlike his first […]