DebateGate

In this sense, I contend, aside from political speech, this type of communication is prized under our First-Amendment system. Thus, on this level, the displayer enjoys the added protection of being a seeker through relevant, expressive behavior, and not a hate-monger.

The displayer also is violating copyright laws.

"Bill Watterson had, and still has, very strong anti-merchandising views when it comes to Calvin and Hobbes. A couple of calendars and a children's textbook were published, but after that, the only Calvin and Hobbes material that Watterson would allow were the comic books itself.

However, with a huge fan base desperate to get satisfy their Calvin and Hobbes cravings, it is of little surprise that commercial operators stepped in to produce bootleg merchandise. Refer to the merchandising page for more information.

The most popular of these bootleg merchandise was the Calvin and Hobbes bumper stickers and windows decals. And of these bumper stickers, the most requested one was the various versions showing Calvin urinating on a car logo. For the record, Watterson never drew a strip that featured Calvin urinating. Naturally, Universal Press Syndicate took a dim view of these stickers and threatened to sue sticker makers alleging infringement of copyright and trademark.

Many sticker makers simply ignore the threat whilst others, in a token effort, simply redrew the image to feature a similar, but more generic looking boy. A search of the Net will list several printers who sell Calvin and Hobbes stickers.

These images are included on this site because they are part of the history of Calvin and Hobbes. However, remember that Universal Press Syndicate nor Bill Watterson authorise the use of Calvin and Hobbes for these purposes."

http://www.nivmedia.com/calvin/bumpersticker.php

Quotes from the new book How Mass Media Tries to Pass Off Crap As News by Drew Curtis of http://www.fark.com/:

 "White House pressrooms (no matter which political party is in charge) toss out a huge dump of bad news around 5:00 PM every Friday. Which as far as I can tell is at least five hours after the media corps has clocked out for a three-martini lunch with no intention of coming back to work until Monday." -- P.10

    "The challenge of reporting is to continually come up with new information on the issues on which you're reporting. This can be extremely difficult if not impossible when dealing with sudden emergencies. Most terrorist attacks fit this pattern. Initially, the media is blindsided by the event. Eyewitness reports start coming in, the vast majority of which are inaccurate. Media outlets don't have the option to remain silent about breaking news, so having nothing else to talk about, they repeat the rumors. Unfortunately, they don't realize that people take rumor as fact from mainstream news outlets, or they do realize it but feel they have plausible deniability by reporting rumors as rumor rather than fact." -- P.14

    "Media will ask survivors some of the most deplorable questions such as "How do you feel right now?" "Has this changed you life?" and "Do you think you'll be able to recover and move on?" For most people following these events, the answers are always "Like sh*t," Yes," and "Hell no." -- P.15

    "Take 9/11. After the shock wore off, Congress, the media, and pretty much every other interest group out there demanded to know how the U.S. government had let it happen. Today no one remembers that on 9/10/2001 no one gave a crap about terrorism. We all thought it couldn't happen in the United States. We'll be right back to that attitude in a short while if no more attacks occur, assuming we're not there already." -- P.55

    "If bird flu had killed 1.7 million people last year, everyone would panic. We'd have 72-point-font headlines screaming about the end of the world, riots in the streets, and general societal collapse if Mass Media is to be believed, given its dire bird flu predictions. It turns out that 1.7 million happens to be the number of people killed by tuberculosis in 2004. Three million people would be even worse, right? That's how many people died from AIDS worldwide in 2004. Nobody is panicking." -- P.56

    "...Media Fearmongering stories tend to always cover somewhat unlikely events. Recently I read of an initiative to require car manufacturers to install sensors that alert drivers when leave a baby in the backseat accidentally. Along those same lines, there is an off switch for the passenger-side airbag in my car, a device that has caused only 30-40 deaths ever. By comparison, more people die every year from drinking too much water. Should Congress legislate safety shutoff valves for faucets? Should they regulate our water to keep us from drinking too much?" -- P.57

    "An interesting corollary to this media pattern that has popped up in recent years is advertisers getting a TV commercial banned on purpose. This seems counterintuitive, but it works amazingly well. A company intentionally concocts an offensive commercial and has it produced professionally. It then submits it to a TV network to be added into rotation with the other ads. The network then rejects it. Subsequently, the company in question raises a big stink about it in the media and puts the original commercial on its website for download. The result is a huge surge in traffic to the company's Web site from curious people looking to download the banned commercial in question." -- P.63-64

    "Readers assume information carried by Mass Media is true solely because it appears there. While Mass Media asks its audience to treat all media matters with a degree of skepticism, no one actually does. People expect Mass Media to do that for them, but it doesn't. Whether it should is another issue entirely." -- P.95-96

    "The main problem with "Headline Contradicted by Actual Article" is that most people don't read articles, they read only headlines and move on. Judging from the click-out patterns on Fark, the average person on a given visit to Fark will click on maybe three links out of around two hundred. As for the rest of the links, they read the outrageous tagline, figure they know what the rest of the article says, and move on." -- P.109

    "The real bafflement here is why the media even gives these (9/11 conspiracy theorists) coverage. Compare the two viewpoints. On the one hand we have thousands upon thousands of hours of forensic science, intelligence gathering, and contemporary media. On the other, we have none of these. The two viewpoints are not equally valid. We're not talking about a religious discussion here, we're talking about an actual forensic event witnessed by dozens of people. Just because a number of people believe something doesn't make it a legitimate alternative viewpoint. I'm not trying to evangelize here. If someone manages to come up with some new evidence, such as a warehouse where the government is keeping all the passengers from the planes involved in the attacks, a missile fuselage, or otherwise, I'm more than happy to change my viewpoint. I'd rather be right than win an argument. I'm not holding my breath on this one, though. If the US government couldn't conspire a way to plant weapons of mass destruction in Iraq in order to save face, I doubt they're capable of pulling off 9/11." -- P.119

    "In theory, "Equal Time for Nutjobs" should be harmless. The people being interviewed are obviously out of their gourds. The problem is that a Mass Media mention gives them instant credibility. The media audience automatically assumes that the Mass Media wouldn't give coverage to anything they knew was patently false." -- P.131

    "I fully expect that when I'm a senior citizen, I'll have to read actual scholarly debates concerning the reality of the Holocaust. I guarantee you the first argument will be "We don't know anyone who was there, so how can we prove it was real?" It's already starting; Iran held one in late 2006. The media needs to cut this crap out and stop giving nutjobs a platform to stand on. And don't give me the "where do we draw the line" argument. Just make a judgment call, already." -- P.132

    "Like it or not, we live in a world where people will pay more attention to what a member of a famous boy band says on a technical subject as opposed to real scientists, who in theory should know more about what the hell they are talking about." -- P.137

    "It's going to be a long while before people forget that Hurricane Katrina pretty much destroyed New Orleans. After which, the citizens of that fine city promptly rebuilt it in the same place, ten feet below sea level right next to the Mississippi. What could possibly go wrong? Again, I mean." -- P.151

    "'Mysterious Repeating Sources' are caused by the fact that news sources do a minimum amount of background research, especially during breaking news. If a piece of information originates with research they did themselves, they tend to do a decent job of fact-checking before reporting it. If it originates with someone else, Mass Media, or other blog-type media, they tend not to fact-check it at all." -- P.200

    "Mass Media will respond that media issues are of great importance because they impact the public trust in news organizations. This ignores the fact that most people already believe Mass Media either makes stuff up, is biased one way or the other, or constantly gets information wrong. Finding out that journalists sometimes invent stories just confirms their preexisting viewpoint." -- P.248

    "What people are interested in is not, for the most part, hard news. Witness the travesty that is CNN's most popular articles section. Taking today as a random example, without looking beforehand, mind you, we have a main page story about Bin Laden preparing another attack on the United States. Hey, that's real news. Most popular: "raw fish, air guitar help trio survive 9 months adrift at sea." No further comment needed." -- P.251

    "People don't really want to watch or read news that does the right thing. The McNeil-Lehrer Newshour was a great example of this. Quality news, mostly information, and no one watched it. It was dry as toast in a diner at breakfast on Saturday morning. Is there any way to fix this? No." -- P.253

    "Local newspapers may be lulling themselves into a false sense of security by thinking they can reverse their subscriber loss somehow, some way. Barring some amazing innovation that no one has yet envisioned, and that's certainly a possibility, print media subscriber loss will not be reversed under any circumstances. A company depending on unheard-of innovation for its survival is about as effective as you depending on the lottery to cover your retirement." -- P.255

    "It is highly likely that it may not even be possible to convert newspapers, radio, and TV to the internet and maintain the same income levels from advertising, because now marketing folks can't lie about how effective it is anymore. And by drop in income, I don't mean a loss of 10 percent; we're talking 90 percent or more. That's a conservative estimate; it could be much worse.

    Pre-internet, Mass Media could charge for ads based on total circulation or viewership whether anyone opened the newspaper to page A5 or actually watched the evening news at 5:42 P.M. Now Mass Media can charge only if the reader actually reads the specific page in question. Fark's own usage statistics indicate that the average Fark reader clicks on 2 or 3 articles out of 100 main page articles and 200 sub-page articles. The implication here is that people visiting Mass Media Web sites don't read many of the articles. Putting it simply: On the Internet, Mass Media can no longer charge money for ads no one sees." -- P.262-263

Don't get me wrong, both parties do it. This article just seems to be playing heavy on the "woe is us the poor conservative victims" card.

JSov, I'm not sure if you were directing your comment to the author specifically or to the sentiment in general, but he  states: "I'm a Democrat. I would be really grateful if my party would nominate somebody who doesn't make my skin crawl just thinking of them in the White House (i.e., someone who isn't Hillary Clinton). I'm still looking long and hard at Barack Obama."

I look forward to seeing how the media deals with Romney.  Americans tend to place an inordinate amount of pride in our history of struggles with religious persecution and the tenets upon which our country was founded - and we view other countries without our particular brand of freedoms and rights with smug superiority.  Hopefully, the principle of "practice what you preach" will guide those in the media who have the power to affect public opinion.  And more importantly, I hope that the voters will examine each candidate with an eye toward seeing the whole person, not just one facet of their lives.

Congratulations to you and your sweetheart, Pooch....the picture of the heart drawn around your names  in the sand is especially nice. 

The words "natural family," "marriage" and "union of a man and a woman" can be punished as "hate speech" in government workplaces, according to a lawsuit that is being appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court.
    Briefs for Good News Employee Association vs. Hicks, which were filed June 5 with the nation's highest court, lists D.C. school board President Robert C. Bobb as one of two plaintiffs. The case originated five years ago in Oakland, Calif., during his tenure there as city manager.
    The dispute began in January 2003, when the two Oakland employees created a subgroup at their workplace called the "Good News Employee Association." It was partly in response to a group of homosexual employees having formed their own group 10 months before and being given access to the city e-mail system. One e-mail, dated Oct. 11, 2002, invited city employees to participate in "National Coming-Out Day."
    When several employees asked whether such a posting was legitimate city business, they got an e-mail from City Council member Danny Wan, reminding them that a "celebration of the gay/lesbian culture and movement" was part of the city's role to "celebrate diversity."
    In response, the Good News employees posted an introductory flier on the employee bulletin board Jan. 3.
    It said: "Preserve Our Workplace With Integrity: Good News Employee Association is a forum for people of faith to express their views on the contemporary issues of the day." It said it opposed "all views which seek to redefine the natural family and marriage," which it defined as "a union of a man and a woman, according to California state law."
    Anyone who wanted to help preserve "integrity in the workplace" was invited to contact the two employees: Regina Rederford and Robin Christy.
    A lesbian co-worker, Judith Jennings, spotted the flier and complained to the city attorney's office that it made her feel "targeted" and "excluded," according to a deposition. The flier was removed by a supervisor because it violated the city's anti-discrimination rules.
    A U.S. District Court for Northern California ruling said the words "natural family" and "marriage" had "anti-homosexual import."
    However, Miss Rederford was told she could announce the group's presence on the city's e-mail system if she removed "verbiage that could be offensive to gay people."
    In late February 2003, Joyce Hicks, a city deputy executive director and the other defendant in the suit, sent out a memo to city employees. It cited recent incidents where "fliers were placed in public view which contained statements of a homophobic nature" and warned employees they could be fired for posting such material.
    Miss Rederford and Miss Christy sued the city, claiming their First Amendment rights had been violated. According to court documents, employees had posted bulletin announcements on everything from terrorist mastermind Osama bin Laden to local sporting events, yet those had not been removed.
    The district court disagreed, saying the women had other venues in which to proclaim their message. The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals said employees' freedom of speech takes a back seat to employers' "legitimate administrative interests." They were allowed to submit a new flier, subject to "certain editorial constraints."
    "This incredible and devastating ruling has had the practical effect of silencing hundreds, if not thousands, of City of Oakland employees who simply wish to talk about marriage and family values," said a statement from the Pro-Family Law Center in Temecula, Calif., which represents the plaintiffs.
    "To the extent that this ruling has been shared by Oakland with other cities, there is a huge risk that these rulings are being treated as precedent by other cities across the nation," the statement continued.

http://www.washingtontimes.com/national/20070610-111445-6957r.htm

Well....I'm flattered by your offer.  But expressing one's thoughts through writing is a highly personal endeavor, and I think you should continue with your story.  I really am interested to see where you're going with this (or where it takes you, which tends to happen most often).  I'd be more than willing to proofread for you...lol.  My email address is on my member profile, if you want to discuss it further.

It's not the first time Lee Baca, the sheriff who opened the jail door for Paris Hilton, has had his judgment questioned.

He's been criticized for using his authority to benefit friends and supporters, and since coming to office he's accepted thousands of dollars worth of freebie meals, sports tickets and trips.

Baca is facing accusations of favoritism after making the decision that allowed Hilton to leave jail Thursday and serve out her sentence at her West Hollywood home.

He dismissed that criticism, saying Friday that Hilton had been ordered to spend an unusually long time behind bars.

Under his department's early release program, Hilton would not have served any time in jail and would have been put on home electronic monitoring, Baca said.

"The special treatment, in a sense, appears to be because of her celebrity status," he said. "She got more time in jail."

After ordering Hilton back to her cell Friday, Superior Court Judge Michael T. Sauer said he "at no time condoned the actions of the sheriff."

The union representing deputy sheriffs demanded that Baca "put a stop to his special treatment for celebrity inmates." And county Supervisor Don Knabe said he was stunned to find out Baca released Hilton without consulting the court.

"I would have thought he would have better judgment than that," Knabe said.

The county Board of Supervisors will demand a report on Hilton's release and Baca's decision-making in the matter, Knabe said.

For Baca, 65, who has led the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department since 1998, the blowback is not extraordinary.

When Mel Gibson was arrested for drunken driving, the department withheld video and audio tapes of the arrest, asserting they were exempt from open-government laws.

There were questions about favorable treatment for the "Apocalypto" director after a sheriff's spokesman initially said the arrest occurred "without incident" and made no mention of Gibson's now-notorious anti-Semitic rant.

"When a celebrity is involved, that's when people pay attention," said Robert Stern of the Center for Governmental Studies, a research group. "The big question ... is why didn't the sheriff go to the judge" before Hilton was released.

Last year, the Los Angeles Times reported Baca put one of his closest friends on the payroll as a $105,000-a-year adviser.

The newspaper also said he had accepted more than $42,000 in gifts since taking office, including some from those who do business with his department.

In 2004, he took more gifts than California's other 57 sheriffs combined.

Baca oversees an 8,000-officer force that has been vexed by low morale, tight budgets, overcrowded jails and the persistence of gang crime.

Jonathan Wilcox, a Republican strategist who teaches a course on politics and celebrity at the University of Southern California, said Baca may be caught between public expectations and the reality of the criminal justice system.

"Sheriff Baca needs to be very concerned with at least the impression that the final frontier, the law, is now as affected by celebrity as almost every other aspect of our lives," Wilcox said.

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/n/a/2007/06/08/state/n145756D44.DTL&type=printable

So when is the next installment?