Friday, January 29, 2010

What the Superbowl Tells us about Norms & Culture

CBS, who will televise Superbowl 44, refused to broadcast an ad for ManCrunch.com, a gay dating Web site though it will broadcast an ad that is a Pro-Life ad,features Tim Tebowby, and was created by Focus on The Family.

It appears that at one point CBS rejected issue ads. Now it appears that CBS does not reject issue ads just issue ads from certain ideological dispositions.

CBS and the Superbowl: Trivializing culture for 44 years.

From CNN here and here.

Wednesday, January 27, 2010

The Ethics of Research

I wonder if this would make a good case-study on the ethics of research when gathering evidence to support your ideas.

James O'Keefe, a 25-year-old Conservative filmmaker, was arrested for attempting to infiltrate the office of State Senator Mary Landrieu (D-LA). O'Keefe and three others were charged with "entering federal property under false pretenses and attempting to gain access to the Democrat’s office by posing as telephone repairmen." As two of the individuals, who were dressed up as telephone repair workers, tried to gain access to the phone system, O'Keefe, who was in the office, taped the interaction on his cell phone. The fourth individual was arrested in a car positioned a few blocks from the office. This individual was in possession of a listening device.

O'Keefe is known for paying someone to pose and a prostitute and film the prostitute with ACORN workers discussing how to circumvent the law. The videos were damaging to ACORN even though there may have been substantial edits to O'Keefe's film.

For more, read here.

Update: Here is a photo of O'Keefe, who is dressed as in pimp for the ACORN videos.