This episode takes a look at that elusive idea of defining what art is. Where does that spark of creativity come from? What drives human beings to take an idea from our mind and create something in the physical world? As a starting point for this conversation we take a look back throughout history to see what people far smarter than all of us have to say about art and the role of art within human society. At a very basic level, any art (both good and bad) is just the product of a human being exp...
May 10, 2016
We start off the show with some poetry: Bulls On Parade by Rage Against the Machine For our In The News segment on this show we take a look at the death of Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia and the odd circumstances surrounding his death. We're not talking about who should replace him on the bench or if President Obama should nominate someone or just wait and let President Trump do it after the election in November...we're talking about the actual circumstances surrounding his death as report...
Mar 08, 2016
We start off the show with some poetry: Even When There's Little Choice, We Choose by Nicholas Gordon For our In The News segment on this show we take our one and only looks at the Republican and Democrat primary season. We have a clip from each side that proves the two party political machine is still very much in control and knows what they are doing. If that isn't convincing enough, we also have an audio clip from Leslie Moonves, the president and CEO of CBS Corporation, explaining to shareho...
Feb 23, 2016
We start off the show with some poetry: Incident by Countee Cullen Next up we have and installment of Holy Shit where we take a look at (and listen to) the radio show Fortress of Faith and their list of questions to help figure out whether or not " Your Muslim friend is a terrorist ". It would be a funnier list if it wasn't being taken so seriously by the shows host (and presumably his listeners). For our In the News segment on this episode, we take a closer look at the family that is truly at t...
Feb 09, 2016
We're starting off 2016 with a new format for the show. Mic Check Radio is now a bi-weekly show. We start off this show with some poetry: Ballad of the Landlord by Langston Hughes Next up is an installment of the FBI Files , as we take a look at the sad entrapment case of Emanuel L. Lutchman. You can read the Criminal Complaint against him here . We also bid farewell to 2015 by going over the fascinating results of the Pew Research Center's ' 15 Striking Findings From 2015 '. [ Click to Listen ]...
Jan 26, 2016
We finish up our year end wrap up of Activist Cinema from 2015 with a brief discussion of some prominent LGBTQ films (The Danish Girl, Stonewall, Freeheld, Carol and About Ray) and how they were mostly not that good...but that is okay. We also compare the narrative device used in the film Stonewall with the exact same device used in the film Suffragette and how the critics hated it in one film, but loved it in another. There were also two notable films, one produced independently (99 Homes) and ...
Jan 04, 2016
We start off our annual year end wrap up with some news about the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission investigating the hiring practices of the major Hollywood studios. Turns out, the entertainment industry is shallow, image obsessed and sexist towards women. Hopefully this investigation will have better results than the 1969 investigation by the EEOC...or the 1983 class action law suit by the Directors Guild of America. We also take quick look at a few of the essential documentary films of ...
Dec 22, 2015
It's a really shitty time to be a kid in the world today, especially if you are one of the 250 million girls under the age of 15 who are forcibly married off by their family each year. UNICEF and Girls Not Brides are trying their best to raise awareness and combat child marriage, but on some parts of this planet a daughter is a commodity to be sold. Some daughters as young as 8. Often times to men old enough to be her father or grandfather. Unfortunately, the boys of Afghanistan don't have it an...
Dec 08, 2015
It's a really shitty time to be a kid in the world today, especially if your family is religious. Specifically if your family is Catholic and poor. In this episode we take a look at the abuse of children by degenerate priests, bishops, cardinals...basically white males in positions of power within the Catholic church. From the 2002 stories published by the Boston Globe Spotlight team to the wonderful work that survivors of abuse are doing to help each other try and heal, the Internet has played ...
Nov 30, 2015
It's a really shitty time to be a kid in the world today. Over 2 million of them will go thru the well oiled machine that is the international sex slave market. On this episode we look at how a human trafficking bust in New Jersey was a catalyst for Peter Landesman, a journalist, to travel the world and expose the system that keeps this market thriving ( Click for Article ). And the humans sold in this market are getting younger and younger. [ Click to Listen ]...
Nov 16, 2015
We are all affected by it...call it advertising, propaganda, programming, social engineering, psychological operations, or whatever other term could be applied. The act of a force outside of your mind trying to convince you to do something. In this installment we take a look at the world of propaganda we are currently stuck with. At this stage, we have to look past political ideologies to the one true underlying factor that guides the programming...money. Our coverage begins with the good intent...
Oct 12, 2015
In this fifth and final episode of the Mic Check Radio Book Club series we conclude with the final chapters of the audio book, Propaganda by Edward L Burnays , published in 1928. Noam Chomsky has called this book "the main manual of the public relations industry". It may be 87 years old, but the ideas and concepts are still used (and successful) today. This book explores the psychology of manipulating the masses in order to influence consumerism, politics, social change and gender dynamics. On t...
Sep 28, 2015
We are all affected by it...call it advertising, propaganda, programming, social engineering, psychological operations, or whatever other term could be applied. The act of a force outside of your mind trying to convince you to do something. In this installment we take a look at a perfect storm that developed starting in the 1950's. After WWII, there was a mass exodus of white citizens leaving the major cities of America and settling in the newly created suburbs. This is the birth of the 'cute' l...
Sep 14, 2015
As we work thru some serious computer issues, here is a rebroadcast from the archives. It dovetails perfectly with the upcoming Episode 6 in our We Are Being Programmed series. Sunday, August 11, 2013 Way back in 1987 a government funded study, Perception of Risk , was published in the journal Science. While the study is officially a look at how the general public evaluates and perceives risk, it also reads as a manual for the manipulation of the public's fear and the unrealistic desire to live ...
Jul 06, 2015
In this fourth episode of the Mic Check Radio Book Club series we continue with the audio book of Propaganda by Edward L Burnays , published in 1928. Noam Chomsky has called this book "the main manual of the public relations industry". It may be 87 years old, but the ideas and concepts are still used (and successful) today. This book explores the psychology of manipulating the masses in order to influence consumerism, politics, social change and gender dynamics. On this episode we will hear Chap...
Jun 08, 2015
We are all affected by it...call it advertising, propaganda, programming, social engineering, psychological operations, or whatever other term could be applied. The act of a force outside of your mind trying to convince you to do something. In this installment we take a look at what happened to the enormous propaganda machine after WWII was over. Once the Office of War Information was disbanded in 1945, the Central Intelligence Agency took over the domestic operations and "assumed many of the in...
May 18, 2015
In this third episode of the Mic Check Radio Book Club series we continue with the audio book of Propaganda by Edward L Burnays , published in 1928. Noam Chomsky has called this book "the main manual of the public relations industry". It may be 87 years old, but the ideas and concepts are still used (and successful) today. This book explores the psychology of manipulating the masses in order to influence consumerism, politics, social change and gender dynamics. On this episode we will hear Chapt...
May 04, 2015
We are all affected by it...call it advertising, propaganda, programming, social engineering, psychological operations, or whatever other term could be applied. The act of a force outside of your mind trying to convince you to do something. In the forth episode of this series we take a look at the Golden Age of Propaganda, World War II. We do this by analyzing several audio clips from films played in motion picture theaters during the 1940's. The clips include: Education for Death (made by Walt ...
Apr 20, 2015
In this second episode of the Mic Check Radio Book Club series we continue with the audio book of Propaganda by Edward L Burnays , published in 1928. Noam Chomsky has called this book "the main manual of the public relations industry". It may be 87 years old, but the ideas and concepts are still used (and successful) today. This book explores the psychology of manipulating the masses in order to influence consumerism, politics, social change and gender dynamics. On this episode we will hear Chap...
Apr 06, 2015
We are all affected by it...call it advertising, propaganda, programming, social engineering, psychological operations, or whatever other term could be applied. The act of a force outside of your mind trying to convince you to do something. In the third episode we play a couple of clips of commercial radio from the 1940's, then we enter 'The Lab'. Once sound film is perfected (more or less), Hollywood productions are now the great laboratory of for propagandists experimentation. Any good propaga...
Mar 24, 2015
On this supplemental episode we kick off a series of the Mic Check Radio Book Club. It's the audio book of Propaganda by Edward L Burnays , published in 1928. Noam Chomsky has called this book "the main manual of the public relations industry". It may be 87 years old, but the ideas and concepts are still used (and successful) today. This book explores the psychology of manipulating the masses in order to influence consumerism, politics, social change and gender dynamics. On this episode we will ...
Mar 09, 2015
We are all affected by it...call it advertising, propaganda, programming, social engineering, psychological operations, or whatever other term could be applied. The act of a force outside of your mind trying to convince you to do something. In the second episode of this series we take a look at the early, early days of advertising...before cars took people to stores miles from their house. Back in this time period, the merits of a consumer good or service were believed to be enough to sell the i...
Mar 02, 2015
We are all affected by it...call it advertising, propaganda, programming, social engineering, psychological operations, or whatever other term could be applied. The act of a force outside of your mind trying to convince you to do something. In the kick-off episode of this series we go over the etymology and definitions of the above terms and then get into an example of how 'conversations' on this topic usually play out within the corporate media [hint: they suck]. We also take a listen to some s...
Feb 16, 2015
Here's the initial news headline that caught my attention "FBI Arrest Ohio Man in ISIS Inspired Attack on US Capitol Building". This headline caught my eye for a number of reasons; I live in Ohio, the FBI has a track record of coaxing isolated individuals into "plots" like this and the idea of attacking the US Capitol sounds terrifying. So, in this episode was track down the publicly available paperwork the FBI filed on Christopher Lee Cornell to see what the reality is behind this kind of headl...
Feb 02, 2015
More details on Police State tactics of surveillance. The FBI (and the court system) has determined that there is no reasonable expectation of privacy once a citizen has left his or her home. So, if you are outside of your house, you will be monitored. How? Two of the new surveillance weapons used by the United States Intelligence Community are the DRT Box and the StingRay. They both work in similar ways. They are "cell-site simulators" or "ISMI catchers". From the ACLU website: "Stingrays, also...
Jan 19, 2015
A look at some of the great examples of Activist Cinema from 2014, and a little bit of behind the scenes information about the 'Sony Hack'. No No: A Dockumentary, The Internet's Own Boy, The Unknown Known, Citizenfour, Night Moves, Selma. [Click to Listen]
Jan 05, 2015
Eric Garner, killed by a cop in Staten Island, NY. John Crawford, killed by a cop in Bevercreek, OH. Michael Brown, killed by a cop in Ferguson, MO. Tamir Rice, killed by a cop in Cleveland, OH. Is there some sort of racist-cop trend that has cropped up recently around the country or is there a larger issue here? If we have a half-asses compulsory school system in this country that barely educates the masses, then what happens when a certain portion of those masses become cops? In this episode w...
Dec 15, 2014
[Rebroadcast: Episode from February 9th, 2013]From push notifications, corporate news channel tickers, billboards, newspaper headlines, blog titles, Facebook updates and twitter posts - the depth of our information diet is getting smaller and less diverse. In this episode we take a look at alternative ways to expand the mind with in depth information. From concerts and films to just plain old up all night passionate conversations with friends and family, there is no need to limit ourselves when ...
Dec 08, 2014
FBI - Spying - US Citizen's. It's a simple set of search terms. If you search it every six weeks or so you will find no shortage of reasons to be pissed off. This weeks tale includes an internationally know non-profit organization that is funded by "donations" from the top corporations in the world and how they hosted the current head of the FBI and his speech - Going Dark: Are Technology, Privacy and Public Safety on a Collision Course ? [Hint: it's a trick question] This from a guy who oversee...
Nov 24, 2014
Activist Cinema 11: We're trying something new with this episode of Activist Cinema...we're discussing a film that I hate. The term 'Citizen's United' is very familiar to most activists these days, but it's mainly due to the infamous Supreme Court case. In the case the court decided: "that the First Amendment prohibited the government from restricting independent political expenditures by a nonprofit corporation. The principles articulated by the Supreme Court in the case have also been extended...
Nov 09, 2014
