Ocelopotamus

News, culture, and politics. Not necessarily in that order.

Ocelopotamus header image 4

Entries Tagged as 'Media'

Rolling Stone: John Edwards is “the Real Liberal” in the Race

August 13th, 2007 · 4 Comments · Climate Change, Healthcare Crisis, Journalism, Labor, Media, Politics, The Economy, Stupid

[Read more →]

Tags:

Roundup: Ronald Reagan Memorial Bridge Edition

August 9th, 2007 · 1 Comment · Activism, Apple, Comics, Culture, Human Rights, Infrastructure, Journalism, LGBT, Lit, Macintosh, Media, Nature, News, Poetry, Politics, Religion, Roundup, Science, Tech, Torture

This is brilliant. Peter Smith at the Huffington Post has a proposal for renaming the new I-35W bridge in Minneapolis that will replace the one that collapsed: “For a while there, back when the Republicans held the White House and both houses of Congress, they were naming things after Ronald Reagan everywhere. Airports. Aircraft carriers. […]

[Read more →]

Tags:

Bridge to the 21st Century

August 6th, 2007 · 2 Comments · Culture, Infrastructure, Media, News, Politics, Public Transportation, TV, Video

Keith Olbermann and Rachel Maddow say pretty much what I’ve been wanting to say about the Minneapolis bridge collapse story.   I hate to say it, but I feel like we’ve just had a “welcome to the 21st century” kind of moment, and this isn’t going to be the last time this kind of preventable […]

[Read more →]

Tags:

The Money Power: Clinton, Edwards, and Obama at Yearly Kos

August 5th, 2007 · 1 Comment · Activism, Blogs, Chicago, Culture, Media, News, Politics, Video

From a story in the Washington Post on the Yearly Kos convention taking place in Chicago this weekend… I can’t believe Hillary actually said this out loud. Clinton came under attack for declining to join former senator John Edwards (N.C.), who is quite popular with bloggers, and Sen. Barack Obama (Ill.) in pledging not to […]

[Read more →]

Tags:

A Message from Ian McKellen

August 1st, 2007 · 5 Comments · Activism, Culture, Film, Human Rights, LGBT, Media, News, Politics, Theater, Video

… to the people of Singapore.  

[Read more →]

Tags:

Good Morning, Day 14

July 31st, 2007 · Comments Off on Good Morning, Day 14 · Activism, Culture, Essays, HCC-DDT, Health, Healthcare Crisis, Human Rights, Media, News, Politics, The Economy, Stupid

So I’ve been slammed with work for the last week or so, and I haven’t had a chance to update this count in a full seven days. During that time, about 350 more Americans have died because they couldn’t afford health care. That brings the total count to approximately 700 people who have died just […]

[Read more →]

Tags:

Music: Catching Up to Yoko

July 24th, 2007 · 9 Comments · Chicago, Culture, Feminism, Human Rights, Journal, LGBT, Media, Music, New Wave, News, TV, Video

Something I’ve been meaning to post for a couple of weeks now … I’ve long thought that Monica Kendrick is the best music writer at the Reader and the spot-on writeup she turned in just before Yoko Ono’s appearance at the recent Pitchfork Music Festival only reinforces that notion: 9:00 Yoko Ono For decades her […]

[Read more →]

Tags:

Good Morning, Day 7

July 24th, 2007 · Comments Off on Good Morning, Day 7 · Activism, HCC-DDT, Health, Healthcare Crisis, Human Rights, Journalism, Media, News, Politics, The Economy, Stupid

About 50 Americans have died since yesterday because they couldn’t afford health care. That brings the total to 350 people who have died thanks to our profit-focused health care system just since I started keeping this count, six days ago. If 350 US citizens had died in a plane crash this week, we’d be hearing […]

[Read more →]

Tags:

Video Roundup: Colbert, Stewart, and Olbermann

July 20th, 2007 · 3 Comments · Comedy, Culture, Healthcare Crisis, LGBT, Media, News, Politics, TV, Video

First up, Stephen interviews Michael Moore … all the way from Brazil!  Next, Jon Stewart’s take on anti-gay Surgeon General nominee James Holsinger, in which he manages to reveal some surprising truths inherent in plumbing fixtures. (I previously posted Colbert’s take on Holsinger’s fixture fixation, but Stewart gets some good mileage out of it, too.)  […]

[Read more →]

Tags:

Moore vs. Gupta: The Wrap-Up

July 20th, 2007 · Comments Off on Moore vs. Gupta: The Wrap-Up · Culture, Film, Health, Healthcare Crisis, Media, News, Politics, TV, Video

I didn’t get a chance to weigh in on the whole Moore vs. Gupta dustup while it was happening (much to the relief of the scale!), but here’s a little post-mortem wrap-up. First off, some links in case you missed any or all of it (all video links except the second one): Round One: Michael […]

[Read more →]

Tags:

Dogging Michael Vick

July 19th, 2007 · 6 Comments · Activism, Culture, Film, Media, News, Pets, Politics

There have been a lot of scandals involving professional sports figures in recent years. But the federal indictment of NFL quarterback Michael Vick (of the Atlanta Falcons) on dogfighting charges is in a far worse league than the latest steroid abuse flap. Here’s what the email I got from the Humane Society of the United […]

[Read more →]

Tags:

Update: Internet Radio Gets a Reprieve

July 13th, 2007 · 2 Comments · Activism, Culture, Internet, Media, Music, News

For those who’ve been following the “Internet Radio Is in Danger of Being Shut Down Forever” story (background here), there’s some good news. According to Wired News, as a result of the massive outcry Congress heard from listeners, SoundExchange is backing away from the draconic royalty rate structure that would have put Internet radio out […]

[Read more →]

Tags:

Liking Norma Rae

July 10th, 2007 · Comments Off on Liking Norma Rae · Activism, Culture, Film, History, Labor, Media, News, Peoria, Politics, The Economy, Stupid

After reading this piece, which originally ran in The Nation, I bumped Norma Rae up on my Netflix queue and was very glad I did. I was really too young for it when it came out in 1979, and had somehow never gotten around to renting it in the years since. And seeing Norma Rae […]

[Read more →]

Tags:

Notes on Sicko: A Prescription for Change

July 6th, 2007 · 4 Comments · Activism, Culture, Film, Health, Healthcare Crisis, History, Journalism, Media, News, Politics, Science

I saw Sicko Tuesday night, and it did not disappoint. The main impact for me is this: Watching this film makes it unavoidably clear that we as a nation have been completely duped, conned, and as the kids say, “pwned,” by those who’ve spent millions to convince us that universal healthcare is too expensive, can’t […]

[Read more →]

Tags: