July 2, 2013
‘My Cousin Vinny‘ is a 1992 American comedy film written by Dale Launer (‘Dirty Rotten Scoundrels,’ ‘Ruthless People’), directed by Jonathan Lynn (‘Clue,’ ‘The Whole Nine Yards’), and starring Joe Pesci, Ralph Macchio, Marisa Tomei, and Fred Gwynne (best known for playing Herman Munster; the film was Gwynne’s final role before his death the following year).
‘My Cousin Vinny’ is the story of two young New Yorkers traveling through rural Alabama who are put on trial for a murder they did not commit, and the comic attempts of a cousin, Vincent Gambini, a newly minted lawyer, to defend them. Much of the humor comes from the contrasting personalities of the brash Italian-American New Yorkers, Vinny and his fiancée Mona Lisa Vito, and the more reserved Southern townspeople.
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June 12, 2013
Today, false balance is used to describe a perceived or real media bias, where journalists present an issue as being more balanced between opposing viewpoints than the evidence actually supports.
Journalists may present evidence and arguments out of proportion to the actual evidence for each side, or may even actually suppress information which would establish one side’s claims as baseless. False balance is also often found in political reports, company press releases, and general information from organizations with special interest groups in promoting their respective agendas.
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June 12, 2013
The Fairness Doctrine was a policy of the FCC, introduced in 1949, that required the holders of broadcast licenses to both present controversial issues of public importance and to do so in a manner that was, in the Commission’s view, honest, equitable and balanced (i.e. air contrasting views regarding those matters).
The FCC decided to eliminate the Doctrine in 1987, and in 2011, formally removed the language that implemented it. Stations were given wide latitude as to how to provide contrasting views: It could be done through news segments, public affairs shows, or editorials. The doctrine did not require equal time for opposing views but required that contrasting viewpoints be presented. (The Fairness Doctrine should not be confused with the ‘Equal Time’ rule, which deals only with political candidates.)
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June 10, 2013
Chilling Effects is a collaborative archive created by Wendy Seltzer and founded along with several law school clinics and the Electronic Frontier Foundation (a digital rights group) to protect lawful online activity from legal threats.
Its website, ‘Chilling Effects Clearinghouse,’ allows recipients of cease-and-desist notices to submit them to the site and receive information about their legal rights and responsibilities. The archive was founded in 2001 by Internet activists who were concerned that the unregulated private practice of sending cease-and-desist letters seemed to be increasing and was having an unstudied, but potentially significant, ‘chilling effect’ on speech.
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June 10, 2013
There are a number of disputes relating to the Church of Scientology’s efforts to suppress material critical of Scientology on the Internet through the use of lawsuits and legal threats. In late 1994, the Church of Scientology began using various legal tactics to stop distribution of unpublished documents written by L. Ron Hubbard.
The Church of Scientology is often accused of barratry (litigation for the purpose of harassment or profit) through the filing of SLAPP suits (lawsuits intended to censor, intimidate, and silence critics by burdening them with the cost of a legal defense until they abandon their criticism or opposition). The official church response is that its litigious nature is solely to protect its copyrighted works and the unpublished status of certain documents.
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June 7, 2013
Really Big Coloring Books, Inc (RBCB) is an American publisher based in St. Louis, Missouri. The company develops, publishes and distributes children’s coloring and activity books, many of which are over two feet tall. Some of their products have been controversial due to their political content.
The company was established in 1981 by publisher Wayne Bell. The company is best known for its politically themed coloring books, covering subjects such as Barack Obama, the Tea Party Movement, and Occupy Wall Street.
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June 6, 2013
In behavioral economics, the endowment effect (also known as divestiture aversion) is the hypothesis that a person’s willingness to accept (WTA) compensation for a good is greater than their willingness to pay (WTP) for it once their property right to it has been established. People will pay more to retain something they own than to obtain something owned by someone else—even when there is no cause for attachment, or even if the item was only obtained minutes ago. This is due to the fact that once you own the item, foregoing it feels like a loss, and humans are loss-averse.
The endowment effect contradicts the Coase theorem (a theory of economic efficiency), and was described as inconsistent with standard economic theory which asserts that a person’s willingness to pay (WTP) for a good should be equal to their willingness to accept (WTA) compensation to be deprived of the good, a hypothesis which underlies consumer theory and indifference curves.
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June 5, 2013
‘Born Rich‘ is a 2003 documentary film about growing up in the world’s richest families. It was created by Jamie Johnson, an heir to the Johnson & Johnson fortune. It consists primarily of Johnson interviewing his friends and peers about living life free of financial constraints. These interviews are offset by Johnson’s exploration of his own experience and family.
Interviewees include: Georgina Bloomberg, Stephanie Ercklentz (born to New York lawyer Enno W. Ercklentz Jr.), Christina Floyd (born to golfer Raymond Floyd), Juliet Hartford (born to A&P heir Huntington Hartford), Josiah Cheston Hornblower (born into Vanderbilt-Whitney lineage), S.I. Newhouse IV, Ivanka Trump, Cody Franchetti (heir to Milliken & Co), and Carlo von Zeitschel (German baron and Italian viscount, great grandson of Kaiser Wilhelm). Luke Weil (born to Scientific Games CEO A. Lorne Weil) sued unsuccessfully to remove his segments from the film.
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June 5, 2013
Lookism is a term used to refer to the positive stereotypes, prejudice, and preferential treatment given to physically attractive people, or more generally to people whose appearance matches cultural preferences.
The pejorative term ‘body fascism’ is also used as a synonym and educator and activist Warren Farrell has proposed the term ‘genetic celebrity’ to describe adoration of the attractive.
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June 4, 2013
Patent monetization refers to the generation of revenue or the attempt to generate revenue by a person or company by selling or licensing the patents it owns.
The so-called patent trolls—which is a pejorative term—attempt to generate revenue by buying and enforcing patents against one or more alleged infringers in a manner considered by the target or observers as unduly aggressive or opportunistic, often with no intention to further develop, manufacture or market the patented invention. Other persons or companies, which are not regarded as patent trolls, also try to make money from patents on inventions they develop, manufacture or market.
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June 4, 2013
Intellectual Ventures is a private company notable for being one of the top-five owners of U.S. patents, as of 2011. Its business model has a focus on buying patents and aggregating them into a large patent portfolio and licensing this ‘IV’ portfolio to companies.
Publicly, it states that a major goal is to assist small inventors against corporations. In practice, the vast majority of IV’s revenue comes from buying patents, aggregating them into a large portfolio and licensing this portfolio to other companies or filing lawsuits for infringement of patents, a controversial practice known as patent trolling.
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June 3, 2013
De-Stalinization refers to the process of eliminating the cult of personality, Stalinist political system and the Gulag labor-camp system created by Soviet leader Joseph Stalin. Stalin was succeeded by a collective leadership after his death in 1953. The central Soviet strongmen at the time were Lavrentiy Beria, head of the Ministry of the Interior; Nikita Khrushchev, First Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU); and Georgi Malenkov, Premier of the Soviet Union.
Contemporary historians regard the process of de-Stalinization as a significant turning point in the history of modern Russia. References to Stalin were embedded in the lyrics of the National Anthem of the Soviet Union, after which the Stalin-centric and World War II-era references were excised where an instrumental version was used.
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