Is a crusading French documentary maker striking a blow at the abusive powers of television — or simply taking reality TV to a new low of cynicism and bad taste? That’s the question viewers across France are asking in light of Christophe Nick’s new film Game of Death, which aired on French television Wednesday night. The documentary has generated a massive amount of attention — and naturally, courted controversy — because of the dilemma that faced contestants on a fake game show in the film: Would they allow themselves to be cajoled into delivering near-lethal electrical charges to fellow players, or rather follow their better instincts and refuse?

Game of Death is an adaptation of an infamous experiment conducted by a team led by Yale University psychologist Stanley Milgram in the 1960s. In order to test people’s obedience to authority figures, the scientists demanded that subjects administer increasingly strong electric shocks to other participants if they answered questions incorrectly. The people delivering the shocks, however, didn’t know that the charges were fake — the volunteers on the other end of the room were actors pretending to suffer agonizing pain. The point was to see how many people would continue following orders to mete out torture.

Milgram found that 62.5% of his subjects could be encouraged, browbeaten or intimidated into seeing the test through to its conclusion by delivering scores of shocks of increasing intensity to the maximum of 450 volts. In Game of Death, 81% of contestants went all the way by administering more than 20 shocks up to a maximum of 460 volts. Only 16 of the 80 subjects recruited for the fake game show refused the verbal prodding from the host — and pressure from the audience to keep dishing out the torture like a good sport — though most expressed misgivings or tried to pull out before being convinced otherwise.

[Read more at Yahoo News]

Each of us was the grand prize in an ultimate reality competition, the amazing race a sperm makes on the road to fertilization.

Millions of sperm compete while overcoming armies of antibodies, treacherous terrain and impossible odds to reach their single-minded goal.

To illustrate the full weight of the challenge, Sizing Up Sperm uses real people to represent 250 million sperm on their marathon quest to be first to reach a single egg.

A pro-government Georgian television station sparked widespread panic in the Caucasian country when it ran a spoof documentary claiming the Russians had invaded again. The half-hour show — which aired Saturday night — brought chaos to the country after it claimed Russian troops were already in the capital Tbilisi and aired “unconfirmed reports” that pro-Western President Mikheil Saakashvili had been assassinated.

Mobile telephone networks crashed, cinemas emptied as parents called their children home and people spilled out on to the street of towns and cities across the country to seek safety. But the report on Imedi-TV — once Georgia’s leading independent station until Saakashvili took it off air following the death of its owner, opposition figure Badri Patarkatsishvili in 2008 — was nothing but a hoax, apparently aired by a pro-government station in an attempt to discredit the opposition before key municipal elections in May.

Georgia Media Production Holdings, which now owns the station, claims the broadcast was designed to show the “real threat” of how events in a fresh Russian invasion might unfold. Screened as a 30-minute news report, the broadcast said Russia aircraft had bombed Georgian air and seaports and that opposition leader Nino Burdzhanadze — just back from a trip to Moscow — had taken power.

She later denounced the report as “outrageous” government propaganda. Although a warning stating that the broadcast was a simulation had been carried when the broadcast begun no warnings were given during the program.

Many viewers failed to notice the initial statement or tuned in mid-way through the report. The result — less than two years after Russia and Georgia fought a five-day war over the disputed rebel territory of South Ossetia, bringing Russian armored columns within an hour’s drive of Tbilisi — was predictable.

“There was panic…

[continues in Variety]

On Feb. 23, I broke a story about how the Senate Armed Services Committee determined that Blackwater employees in Afghanistan signed for hundreds of AK-47s and pistols using the name “Eric Cartman,” evidently a reference to the popular South Park character.

On March 17 — which Dave Weigel tells me is the season premiere — South Park will show Eric Cartman signing for the guns.

Rodney Alcala, 66, is representing himself in the penalty phase of his trial.

“Oh yeah, I remember it quite clearly,” said Jed Mills, the game-show contestant who sat next to Alcala in 1978. “He was creepy. Definitely creepy.”

Found guilty in February of murdering four women and a child, Alcala, 66, is acting as his own attorney in the penalty phase of the trial. He is hoping to persuade the jury in Santa Ana, California, to spare his life.

The crimes Alcala committed date to the late 1970s. Nobody at the time knew the man with the wavy long hair and toothy grin was a psychopath — an unstable, antisocial personality.

That includes Mills, a veteran television and film actor, whose only encounter with Alcala was when both of them appeared on “The Dating Game.”

“That’s when I became part of a nightmare, and I didn’t realize it was a nightmare until 32 years later,” Mills said.

Alcala, who already had been convicted for the 1968 rape of an 8-year-old girl, was the first contestant to be introduced in the game-show episode…

[continues at CNN] ]]> http://www.disinfo.com/2010/03/serial-killer-won-on-the-dating-game/feed/ 0 http://www.disinfo.com/2010/03/obama-gets-visited-by-ghosts-of-presidents-past/ http://www.disinfo.com/2010/03/obama-gets-visited-by-ghosts-of-presidents-past/#comments Thu, 04 Mar 2010 07:08:01 +0000 Ralph Bernardo http://www.disinfo.com/?p=23918 Saturday Night Live and the actors who played the presidents. Sadly, Phil Hartman who did the best television Reagan ever (among other great things) is no longer with us, so they called in someone else to fill his shoes. There's actually a message at the end of the video ... enjoy (the video was directed by Ron Howard): ]]> This is pretty cool if you have been a fan of the history of Saturday Night Live and the actors who played the presidents. Sadly, Phil Hartman who did the best television Reagan ever (among other great things) is no longer with us, so they called in someone else to fill his shoes.

There’s actually a message at the end of the video … enjoy (the video was directed by Ron Howard):

Sarah Palin stopped by “The Tonight Show with Jay Leno” Tuesday.

One wonk on Twitter said it was a meeting of the two most hated people in America. We think that’s unfair to Jay; as for Palin, no comment…

We were somewhere around Barstow on the edge of the desert when the drugs began to take hold. I remember saying something like “I feel a bit lightheaded; maybe you should drive…” And suddenly there was a terrible roar all around us and the sky was full of what looked like huge bats, all swooping and screeching and diving around the car, which was going about a hundred miles an hour with the top down to Las Vegas. And a voice was screaming: “Holy Jesus! What are these goddamn animals?”

— Hunter S. Thompson, Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas

See more fun things on All That’s Interesting

Wall Street trading is often described as a blood sport. But inside the great investment houses, the sport of the moment is, of all things, curling — that oddball of the Olympics that is sort of like shuffleboard on ice.

This slow-poke game, which originated in 16th-century Scotland, has captivated the Type-A world of Wall Street almost by accident. CNBC, whose market chatter is the background music on trading floors, switches to curling from Vancouver shortly after the closing bell. And so, after a day of braying for money in the markets, traders are winding down with curling. It is, fans say, a bit of after-market therapy. Curling is so slow and drawn out that it becomes mesmerizing.

“It is like drinking merlot,” said Douglas A. Kass, the president of Seabreeze Partners, who got hooked on Olympic curling a few years ago via CNBC. (Read More: New York Times)

Grant Morrison, ComiCon 2006. Photo: pinguino, CC

Despite his unbelieveable success as a writer, Grant Morrison has yet to have one of his comics translated onto the screen. Now he’s going to be writing for TV and personally, I can’t wait! Via MTV News:

Comic book scribe Grant Morrison is teaming up with “Push” director Paul McGuigan for a currently untitled television series to be filmed in Scotland, according to McGuigan himself.

In an interview with Live For Films, McGuigan revealed that he’s developing a seven episode television thriller alongside Morrison and actor Stephen Fry, who comic book fans will remember as talk show host Gordon Deitrich in “V for Vendetta.”

“It takes place over seven days around an event that happens in Scotland,” said the “Push” filmmaker. “It’s a modern take on an old fable or fairy story. If you know [Grant's] work you might have an idea of what it will be like. It’s like Twin Peaks meets Brigadoon! It’s off the wall and smart but in a watchable commercial way. It’s still in the early stages but I’m very excited about it.”

According to McGuigan, the project stems from his longtime friendship with Morrison. He revealed: “Me and Grant have been friends for a while and we wanted to do something together and Grant went off and wrote a treatment, so it’s at the treatment stage at the moment.”…

[continues at MTV News

By Nathan Janes, Pupaganda.com.

A flow of information is constantly streaming from the television set; a bombardment of words and pictures.  The speed at which this information is communicated makes it easy for the signal to take control, switching the viewer’s brain to stand-by as information is absorbed without analysis or question. Today the television’s constant signal shapes the conclusions of the masses and produces the collective norm.  The signal prescribes what is news and what is truth through the words of so-called experts and authorities, gelding the consciousness and independent thoughts of those subjected to it. Through television, the masses can be made to accept the most monstrous distortions of reality. The signal is a chill wind of continuous oppression over the minds of the masses. It controls the management of society and culture, creating uniformity across all subjects.

The fuel for this vehicle of mass deception is a technique known as perception management where an array of psychological techniques are used to alter the truth, leading the viewer to a desired conclusion. Some call this spin or propaganda while others know it as lying.  According to Joseph Goebbels, Propaganda Minister for Adolph Hitler, “If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it… It thus becomes vitally important for the State to use all of its powers to repress dissent, for the truth is the mortal enemy of the lie, and thus by extension, the truth is the greatest enemy of the State.” Most of what can be found on the nightly news is nothing but advertisements selling more government and a false reality that benefits only those in control. Television is the dictator of information; newspaper and radio are the whisper campaign of the television’s message.

It is expected that Americans will consistently prescribe to the doctrine of the television. It is subtly communicated that one should stay within the collective and never challenge the message, for doing so may be considered an aggression towards culture. The message is, “Be a good consumer; always obey authority; you know nothing; listen only to experts; be content and never question or express new ideas.” This signal is being broadcast across millions of screens, indoctrinating the unconscious minds of those who choose this as their only reality. Self-censorship occurs when these individuals become so deeply indoctrinated that they are afraid to discuss any information outside the paradigm of television-created culture; they police their thoughts to ensure they won’t conflict with this culture. Sadly, many people’s reality today does not allow any outside information to process, instead it is written off as conspiracy or blatant lies. Our consciousness has been destroyed so much that fiction has become reality. An entire lifestyle of poisonous foods, pharmaceuticals, and fluoridated water are accepted as safe and sold to us at the cost of our health and well being.

Those of the establishment are using the incredibly powerful weapon of mass psychology as a method of controlling the minds of the masses and altering the behavior of individuals. Edward Bernays, a pioneer in the field of public relations in the 20th century, applied Sigmund Freud’s theory of psychoanalysis to manipulate the masses by engineering consent. According to Bernays, “If we understand the mechanism and motives of the group mind, it is now possible to control and regiment the masses according to our will without them knowing it.” Advertisers and psychologists of the billion dollar culture creation industry manufacture trends through the proliferation of insecurities; and manipulating desires and emotions. These concepts are also employed to control how individuals think about politics, as well as the possibilities and limitations within society.  Those welding power within our streams of mass communication market their plans into each generation as individuals adopt specific ways of thinking and never suspect that all the major events and trends within their lifetime are actually planned by an elite few before they are even born. In our society today, culture is created from the top down. Virtually all forms of culture are created by the ruling class to build a false sense of reality, ensure social compliance, and control the future course of cultural evolution.

Predictive programming is a tool used by the establishment to acclimate the public to new ideas, trends, beliefs, and threats. It is used through television by including certain situations or ideas within the plots of many fictional shows, familiarizing the viewer with these concepts no matter what they may be watching.  When similar situations occur or like ideas are circulated in the world we think that these particular things are quite natural for we have unknowingly been made familiar with them through television. By viewing nearly any popular show on television, one can see the same propaganda that will be aired on the nightly news. Propaganda on a wide array of subjects has been interwoven into a great number of television shows. Just a few of these subjects include global warming, vaccinations, torture, terrorism, national security, the militarization of police, and the degradation of the family unit. Through predictive programming, television shapes culture and prevents individuals from asking questions.

Crisis’ are created on a daily basis and broadcast across the airwaves to keep individuals in a state of panic and fear. Whether it be the threat of a pandemic or terrorism, the constant state of crisis has created a form of mental illness as we are slowly acclimated into an age of crisis. By using Hegelian dialectic, the television promotes the problem, guides our reaction, and presents the solution. The problem of terrorism was exclaimed, a strong emotional response was evoked, and it was stated that our rights need be sacrificed in order to protect us from the threat. We’ve lost personal sovereignty under the guise of terrorism; we’re stopped and searched; we’re watched by cameras as we go about our lives; and we’re encouraged to spy on our neighbors.  We have been trained to accept the life of a prisoner.

America is in a state of enlightened despotism where most individuals live only to satisfy selfish inner desires and remain ignorant of the state of the world around them. In most public places one can find a television transmitting propaganda around the clock ensuring the masses remain focused on trivial matters. From birth we take the world as it’s presented on television.  We don’t question it and any serious criticism of TV is becoming psychologically impossible in society. Who would suspect getting born into a world where everything around you is a continuous lie? The youth of today are convinced that the experts and personalities on television are the authority of credible information while parents and older generations are foolish with dated ideas.  Children are conditioned to disconnect from what is truly important to their well being and instead focus on mindless trivia, sports, celebrity gossip, and buying an array of material things. They invest their psychological worth in fantasy characters on television while ignoring or even scorning individuals contributing to the betterment of humanity. They are discouraged from getting involved in their local community and often lack the ability to think independently or to resist corruption. As their children’s minds are molded by television, there is barely a murmur from the public.

For over half a century, our society has lived under this signal of mental programming and conditioning. The message is clear: don’t be a leader, don’t engage in critical thinking, and don’t care about the people in your life. Until individuals become aware of the current information war, our standard of living and our liberties will continue to be degraded and we will continue to lose communities and meaningful relationships between people. Currently, pockets of resistance are beginning to spring up everywhere as some unplug the signal and regain control of their own thoughts. Informed individuals are canceling their cable and satellite subscriptions and instead spending time with their families and children while participating in meaningful experiences. They are seeking alternative news sources. They are reading about those who weld incredible influence over culture like Edward Bernays, Zbigniew Brzezinski, Charles Galton Darwin, Plato, Bertrand Russell, and Aldous Huxley. However, it is a continuous battle to educate the masses for the television remains our greatest threat to individual sovereignty and the largest obstacle to becoming a truly informed individual. Fortunately, unplugging from the signal is easy. The television can simply be turned off. Through doing so, you may realize nearly our entire world is now a hoax; things once known as truth are fake. We have been trained like dogs to be obedient to our television; our master has had our minds on a tight leash. Let us never forget the truth will not be televised.

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Among other things, Giuseppe “Beppe” Bigazzi is known for his prize-winning cookbook La cucina semplice dei sapori d’Italia (”The simple cuisine of the flavours of Italy”). But as of this week, the flavour with which the TV gastronome is likely to be most closely associated is that of stewed cat.

Bigazzi is familiar to millions of viewers of the publicly-owned RAI network as the white-haired co-presenter of a popular pre-lunchtime programme, La prova del cuoco (”The proof of the cook”). But today he was experiencing his first day without television commitments in 10 years after being axed for expressing his enthusiasm for the flesh of felines.

His remarks came after mentioning how, in the desperate conditions of post-war Italy, some people had taken to boiling stray mogs.

Read More in the Guardian

William Shatner. Photo by Jerry Avenaim

From the Hollywood Reporter:

Twitter sensation Shit My Dad Says is becoming a TV pilot with William Shatner set to play the larger-than-life dad at the center of it.

The casting of Shatner lifts the contingency on CBS’ multicamera family comedy project based on the Twitter account, which has enlisted more than 1.17 million followers since launching in August and has made its creator, Justin Halpern, an Internet star.

The pilot, executive produced by “Will & Grace” creators David Kohan and Max Mutchnick, was originally set up at CBS with a script commitment in November. Now, with Shatner on board, it has been greenlighted to pilot.

Halpern co-penned the script with Patrick Schumacker. Halpern and Schumacker co-exec produce the Warner Bros. TV-produced project.

Halpern, 29, had moved back in with his parents in San Diego, and on Aug. 3 he launched Shit My Dad Says, a Twitter feed featuring colorful — often profane — comments made by his 73-year-old father during their daily conversations…

[continues in the Hollywood Reporter]

JUNEAU, Alaska — Sarah Palin is lashing out at the portrayal of a character with Down syndrome on the Fox animated comedy Family Guy:

In a Facebook posting headlined “Fox Hollywood — What a Disappointment,” the 2008 Republican vice presidential nominee and current Fox News contributor said Sunday night’s episode felt like “another kick in the gut.” Palin’s youngest son, Trig, has Down syndrome.

The episode features the character Chris falling for a girl with Down syndrome. On a date, he asks what her parents do.

She replies: “My dad’s an accountant, and my mom is the former governor of Alaska.”

Palin resigned as Alaska governor last summer. Palin’s oldest daughter, Bristol, also was quoted on her mother’s Facebook page, calling the show’s writers “heartless jerks.”…

[continues at Yahoo News/AP]

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Rachel Maddow calls out Beck for editing her criticism of him on her show and making sure his viewers didn’t see Rachel calling him out for his bullshit. I had said before that Dylan Ratigan was wasting his time engaging Beck. That’s because Ratigan actually thought it would be a good idea to either bring Beck on his show or go on Beck’s show. I do not think when Beck lies about one of them they should let it go unchallenged and am glad Rachel Maddow pointed out Beck’s hypocrisy here and how he edited her segment. Engaging him is a complete waste of time. He’s not going to come on MSNBC any time soon and he sure as hell isn’t going to bring either Ratigan or Maddow on his show any time soon and if he did they’d be in some debate box where he could hit the mute button any time he wanted instead of live on his set.

A new mini-series about John F. Kennedy’s presidency that is being prepared by the History channel does not yet have a cast or a premiere date. Not a frame of footage has been shot. It does, however, have prominent critics who want it brought to a halt.

The critics, including Theodore C. Sorensen, a former Kennedy adviser, say they have read the scripts for the project and that those contain errors of fact and emphasis. But like a similar controversy over a 2003 television film about Ronald Reagan, the dispute over the embryonic Kennedy series seems to say as much about the enduring place of the Kennedys as a battleground in the culture wars as it does about history itself.

The mini-series, called “The Kennedys,” is the brainchild of Joel Surnow, a creator of the Fox action show “24” and an outspoken political conservative. That raised alarms among Kennedy partisans when the History channel said in December that it would pick up the project.

Now a documentary filmmaker who makes no secret of his liberal politics is releasing an Internet video in which Kennedy scholars say the scripts offer a portrait of the president and his family that is, at best, inaccurate, and at worst, a hatchet job.

“It was political character assassination,” the filmmaker, Robert Greenwald, said of the screenplays in a telephone interview. “It was sexist titillation and pandering, and it was turning everything into a cheap soap opera of the worst kind.” Mr. Greenwald said he is hoping that his 13-minute video and an accompanying petition, at stopkennedysmears.com, will take on lives of their own on the Web. A title card at the film’s conclusion reads: “Tell the History Channel I refuse to watch right-wing character assassination masquerading as ‘history.’ ”…

[continues in the New York Times]