An Erik Gandini documentary titled Videocracy takes aim at Silvio Berlusconi's media empire and the ways in which trash-TV has come to subvert and manipulate culture and politics in Italy.The film brilliantly exposes the media circus that is Italian commercial TV with its omnipresent ringmaster Berlusconi. It's a world in which the lines between fantasy and reality have become strangely blurred.An opening scene that resurrects archive footage of a stripping housewife gameshow sets the tone fo... Read Full Story
An Erik Gandini documentary titled Videocracy takes aim at Silvio Berlusconi's media empire and the ways in which trash-TV has come to subvert and manipulate culture and politics in Italy.The film brilliantly exposes the media circus that is Italian commercial TV with its omnipresent ringmaster Berlusconi. It's a world in which the lines between fantasy and reality have become strangely blurred.An opening scene that resurrects archive footage of a stripping housewife gameshow sets the tone fo... Read Full Story
South Africa's ruling party has condemned Canada's 'racist' decision in granting refugee status to Brandon Huntley, a man who claims he was the target of repeated assaults in South Africa because he is white.Huntley is an unemployed 31-year old who formerly worked as a water sprinkler salesman. In 2006 he decided to remain in Canada illegally after entering the country on a temporary permit to work as a carnival attendant.HuntleyAccording to Huntley he was mugged and stabbed on numerous occas... Read Full Story
Catholic League President and Vatican shill Bill Donohue has a tendency to overreact at the best of times.When he was on the morning show Fox and Friends promoting his new book with the bombastic title - Secular Sabotage: How Liberals are Destroying Religion and Culture in America - Donohue was true to form.With paranoid conviction he warned that "militant, dogmatic" atheists are "out to get" Catholics and dismantle American society.Anti-choice fanatics, pedophile priests, Catholic cranks of ... Read Full Story
Former US Presidents and Washington power players showed up at Our Lady of Perpetual Help Basilica in Boston to pay their last respects to Ted Kennedy.The Senator was described by President Obama in his eulogy as "the greatest legislator of our time."There was a certain irony underlying the Roman Catholic send-off for Kennedy. It's hard to overlook that a funeral for an American icon took place in a Boston church rather than the city cathedral. Also to date Pope Benedict has made no comment ... Read Full Story
A photo that appeared on Microsoft's US website turned up on the website of the company's Polish business unit with a few key changes. The pic had been edited to replace the head of a black man with that of a white man.The Asian man made the transition to the Polish site without having any body parts replaced.It's an amateurish photoshop job. The hand of the black man has been left in place. The position of the imported head looks awkward in relation to the torso giving the impression of a ba... Read Full Story
Best selling author Sebastian Faulks has a new book coming out next month titled A Week in December.In an interview with The Sunday Times Magazine Faulks made a number of controversial comments about the Koran. If it was an attempt to generate some advanced publicity for his book it has succeeded, perhaps at the risk of igniting a firestorm.A character in the new book named Hassan al Rashid is an Islamic terrorist recruit. While researching the character of al Rashid, the author dipped into t... Read Full Story
