Category Archives: Uncategorized

Could This Be The Copyright Law Update We Need?

There’s been a lot of controversy surrounding copyright law as of late that charges that it is hopelessly biased toward the rights of large, corporate media (i.e. Disney and the like). Under current copyright law, it is apparently legal for … Continue reading

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Remembering Roger Ebert

“Roger Ebert loved movies. Except for those he hated” It was hard to get the news last week that Pulitzer Prize winning film critic Roger Ebert had died of cancer.  Just the day before he died, Ebert had announced on … Continue reading

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How Did/Should Television Cover Kevin Ware’s Horrific Injury?

In 1999, my eldest son and I went to see the Pittsburgh Pirates play the Milwaukee Brewers in a Fourth of July game.  I have no idea now who won, but I do remember seeing catcher Jason Kendall suffer a … Continue reading

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Questions Worth Asking (Maybe)

And we’re back after a pause for getting fun things like taxes done. Is Nike getting what they want from the Tiger Woods “Winning” ad? (Ad Rants) How does the the 2013 movie box office compare to 2012′s at this … Continue reading

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Pop Culture Charley – Handicapping the Oscars

Charley Reed has done enough guest blog posts here that I’m no longer going to consider him a guest poster.  Instead, I’m going to put his great commentaries on pop media culture under the heading Charley’s Pop Culture.  Here are … Continue reading

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When news catches up with my long-term pop culture diet

I’ve been planning for several days to write a blog entry today about three movies from 1968 that I’ve watched over the last couple of weeks  - 2001: A Space Odyssey, Ice Station Zebra, and The Shoes of the Fisherman. Why … Continue reading

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Amazing Media Quotes

A round up of unexpected things I’ve read recently.  None of these are from The Onion! NPR Station Urges Listeners to Have Sex and Make More Listeners “Chicago’s NPR station, WBEZ, is making a more intimate appeal than usual during … Continue reading

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When Super Bowls Turn Naughty – Do We Care?

During the 2004 Super Bowl, singer Janet Jackson exposed her nipple for 9/16ths of a second, resulting in 8 years of litigation over whether CBS would have to pay a $500,000 fine for the “fleeting nudity.”  In the end, courts … Continue reading

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The Hazelwood Decision’s 25th Anniversary

Twenty-five years ago, the United States Supreme Court  ruled that a high school principal in Hazelwood, Missouri, had the right to censor articles in the student newspaper about pregnancy and divorce.  The court, in its ruling, wrote: The First Amendment … Continue reading

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25 Years of Opinion

Twenty-five years ago this week I started teaching college at Northern Arizona University.  Among the classes I taught that semester was Opinion Writing. Today, I’ll be starting in on a fresh section of that class, only now it’s called Commentary … Continue reading

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