“I was a propaganda intern in Iraq”
Democracy Now is a hard-hitting news program hosted by Amy Goodman and Juan Gonzalez
Anthony Augustine
“I was a propaganda intern in Iraq”—
tinyurl.com/jzzwk
— Currently broadcasting daily from 9 to 10 a.m. on CKUW,
Democracy Now is a hard-hitting news program hosted by Amy Goodman
and Juan Gonzalez. In an attempt to counterbalance corporate media
the show provides a strong, independent look at the world. In
Goodman’s recent interview with Willem Marx, a former intern
with Washington-based government contractor the Lincoln Group,
Marx discusses his involvement in “planting pro-American
articles secretly written by the U.S. military in the Iraqi press.”
While the young intern’s insight into how propaganda is
spun in a post-Saddam Iraq is fascinating, it’s disconcerting
that this story has largely been ignored in the mainstream media.
You can download an MP3 of the interview, stream the video or
read an abbreviated transcript of the spot with the former Baghdad-based
intern.
The 39 Dollar Experiment —
www.the39dollarexperiment.com
— While Kyle MacDonald’s One Red Paper Clip Experiment
was successful in landing him a house in Kipling, Sask., and a
book deal, Tom Locke’s 39 Dollar Experiment had less modest
goals. Hoping to turn a $39 roll of stamps into something more
useful, Locke started sending letters asking for free stuff from
every company and corporation he could think of. You’d be
surprised by what was sent to him.
Nine bittorrent how to’s—
torrentfreak.com
— The entertainment industry has been slow to adopt new
distribution methods for content and has done everything in its
power to restrict the growth of sites that host torrent links
for TV programs, music, video games and movies. Still, that hasn’t
done much to stem the development of high-profile torrent networks.
Torrents sit in a grey area of the law because a torrent file
isn’t actually copyrighted material, and some countries
have allowed sites to continue to host files. There has been some
success in scaring or shutting down portals based in the U.S.,
but for every site that’s brought down three more seem to
pop up. Even the high-profile takedown of The Pirate Bay, one
of the world’s largest torrent trackers, was short lived.
The mega-site was back online within a matter of days, with the
20-something owners effectively thumbing their noses at Hollywood
and its pack of lawyers by using Swedish copyright laws. If you’re
still new to the world of torrents or just want to pick up a few
tips on getting better download speeds or creating a custom TV
feed, this set of nine how-to’s from TorrentFreak should
be helpful.
Up Your Jaxxy— www.vice-recordings.com/blog.html
— Vice may have lost some of its credibility when it
didn’t reject The Stills’ awful second album, but
the former Montreal bad boys still have an impressive roster of
cutting-edge artists. The Up Your Jaxxy section of the Vice website
has a few cuts worth scooping up, from an unreleased remix of
Bloc Party’s Banquet by New York producer Junior Sanchez
to a complete collection of remixes cranked out by electro-punks
Chromeo.
Anthony Augustine is a freelance music and pop culture writer
who spends way too much time in front of the computer. He also
hosts a weekly two-hour electronic music program on CKUW 95.9
FM Got a site you think he should see? E-mail him at anthony.alloneword@gmail.com. |
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