Editor’s note: Media literacy alert!

From Nancy:

Really Cute, but Totally Faked
by Dave Itzkoff
New York Times
February 26, 2013

It seemed too adorable to be fake, but it was too good to be true.

On Sept. 19 a 30-second video appeared on YouTube, depicting a baby goat that had become stuck in the pond of a petting zoo and that was heroically rescued with a helpful nudge from a pig that swam out to it.

Within hours the video had been posted around the Web; it had been shared with the Twitter followers of Time magazine and Ellen DeGeneres; and it had been broadcast on NBC’s “Today” show and its “Nightly News” program, ABC’s “Good Morning America” and Fox News, where the “Fox & Friends” co-host Brian Kilmeade said of it, “You couldn’t do this at Warner Brothers as a cartoon and make it seem more realistic.”

But the video was thoroughly staged. It was created for a new Comedy Central series, “Nathan for You,” with the help of some 20 crew members, including animal trainers, scuba divers and humane officers, and required the fabrication of a plastic track to guide the pig to the goat (which was never in jeopardy).

Video by jebdogrpm

That a faked video had been so rapidly disseminated by unskeptical news outlets was both surprising and dispiritingly familiar to professional experts on the news media. (more…)

CIA whistleblower Kiriakou gets posh send-off to prison
by David Montgomery
Washington Post
February 21, 2013

John Kiriakou stood in the ninth-floor banquet hall of the Hay-Adams hotel Thursday night and took in the spectacular view of the White House and the Washington Monument. He recalled briefing two presidents during his career with the CIA. “It’s ironic,” he said, spreading his arms as if to embrace the tableau. “This really is the reason I came to Washington 30 years ago in the first place.”

But next Thursday he will check into the Federal Correctional Institution in Loretto, Pa., to begin a 30-month sentence for divulging information that prosecutors said could harm his country.

Kiriakou, 48, seemed unbowed and almost content at the prospect of prison as he basked in the well wishes of about 100 supporters, who gathered for a posh send-off at the luxury hotel. The guests wore orange jumpsuits and other mock prison garb and serenaded Kiriakou with a reworked version of the protest anthem “Have You Been to Jail for Justice?”

“I’m proud of my career,” said Kiriakou, who lives in Arlington County. “I still love the CIA — crazy as that may sound. . . . I wear my conviction as a badge of honor.” (more…)

From artist Norm Magnusson: I’m raising funds on Kickstarter for a project to install one of my ‘historical’ markers in each of the 27 travel plazas of the New York State Thruway. I’d love you to join me in this project. The Kickstarter campaign runs through March 20, 2013.

These are sculptures of cast aluminum and acrylic paint. They look just like the historical markers found on country roads, in front of stone houses, or near scenic overlooks all over America, but instead of commemorating the site of a battle or a place where a famous person slept, these markers deal with contemporary social issues such as gender wage disparity, global warming, illegal immigration, taxes, health care and many, many others.

The markers are expensive to make. The cost of materials keeps going up. Fabrication, installation, transportation, assistants, insurance, van rental, rewards and fulfillment… it all adds up and all of a sudden, it’s a pricey project. 7 people at $10,000 each or 7000 people at $10 each or some combination thereof will get me going. But I don’t just need money, I’m also going to need help installing these things, so if you’re interested in digging holes and planting poles, please let me know.

See more from Norm Magnusson here and here.

Posted on YouTube by John Pemberton:

via Upworthy.com

From Emerson Dameron: An homage to a great prankster!

The Man Behind The Brilliant Media Hoax Of “I, Libertine”
by Matthew Callan
The Awl
February 14th, 2013

In the 1950s, a DJ named Jean Shepherd hosted a late-night radio show on New York’s WOR that was unlike any before or since. On these broadcasts, he delivered dense, cerebral monologues, sprinkled with pop-culture tidbits and vivid stretches of expert storytelling. “There is no question that we are a tiny, tiny, tiny embattled minority here,” he assured his audience in a typical diatribe. “Hardly anyone is listening to mankind in all of its silliness, all of its idiocy, all of its trivia, all of its wonder, all of its glory, all of its poor, sad, pitching us into the dark sea of oblivion.” Shepherd’s approach was summed up by his catchphrase: a mock-triumphant “Excelsior!”, followed by an immediate, muttered “you fathead…”

Shepherd inspired fierce loyalty in his listeners who would tune in to listen to him in the middle of the night. These listeners embraced his term for them, “night people,” and under his direction they would execute one of the biggest and most bizarre media hoaxes of the 20th century. The hoax was meant as a strike against their opposite: “day people,” that is, against phoniness and squareness—all those 50s words—as well as a joke on New York pretension.

In our time of memes, virality, and reality blurring, the hoax Shepherd dreamt up seems extremely modern and prescient in its contours—as does the fact that, eventually, it got out of his control. (more…)

From Linda: Hilarious street performance…

Produced by actor/comedian/jackass Gary Lee Mahmoud of Panhandler Party Productions, LLC. More credits and info here

From Fresh Juice Party:

California Group Mails Chocolate Corpses for Valentines

Instead of sending a chocolate heart this Valentine’s, send the entire mutilated body! The limited edition FUBAR comes in both white and milk chocolate and is decorated to depict an American soldier’s corpse returning from war. FUBARs are packaged in refrigerated, flag-wrapped coffins, equipped with hidden sound devices which play the FUBAR Memorial Theme Music when opened. The group has posted this music video that demonstrates these features for those who will not be receiving one of their own.

Who will the lucky recipients be? (more…)

Police say Mont. TV zombie hoax likely linked to others
Michael Beall, Great Falls (Mont.), Tribune
USA Today
February 13, 2013

Fake emergency alert warned of dead bodies walking the streets and attacking the living.

GREAT FALLS, Mont. — Zombies weren’t walking the streets here Monday, but a false alert that aired on two local TV stations went through the same channels on which true emergencies are aired, raising questions and concerns of how the hoax occurred.

The hoax reached around 10 stations in Montana, Michigan, California, Utah and New Mexico, said Greg MacDonald, the CEO of Montana Broadcasters Association.

The alert featured a scrolling warning for various Montana counties and a voice-over claimed there were “dead bodies rising from the grave and attacking the living” and urged people to use caution.

“Do not attempt to approach or apprehend these bodies as they are extremely dangerous,” it said.

MacDonald said the FBI and the FCC are investigating the cases, and initial findings have officials believing the hoax originated somewhere overseas. (more…)

Sarah Palin Wins Correction Of The Day After WaPo Runs Patently Unbelievable Al Jazeera Scoop
by Jason Linkins
Huffington Post
February 12, 2013

So, despite what you’ve heard, former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin is not going to be proselytizing from a perch at Al Jazeera English. This is something that The Washington Post briefly reported Tuesday, on its “She The People” blog, and it is 100 percent wrong. So now, the Post gets to run this fun correction:

CORRECTION: An earlier version of this post incorrectly reported that Sarah Palin planned to contribute to the Al Jazeera America news network.

Palin and Al Jazeera, eh? Well, that would sure be a weird fit, wouldn’t it, given their past intersections. Almost too impossible to believe? Well, the source for the Post’s story was this piece from a website called “The Daily Currant,” and if you can believe this, then you’ll believe anything: (more…)

From Larry C.: Brings to mind Joey Skaggs’ Metamorphosis: Cockroach Cure hoax.

Communicating with the future: a cockroach DNA archive of the New York Times
by M. Scott Brauer
dvafoto.com
Oct 30, 2009

One of my favorite things to think about is the difficulty of communicating with humans generations from now, or even tens of thousands of years from now. An example: The Office of Civilian Radioactive Waste Management overseeing Yucca Mountain, the proposed Nevada site for disposal of nuclear waste, has been working with artists to develop a warning system that would alert future visitors to the area of the dangers buried in the mountain. From the website, “The monumental challenge is to address how warnings can be coherently conveyed for thousands of years into the future when human society and languages could change radically.” The purpose of the warning sign is “to deter intentional or inadvertent human intrusion or interference at the site and to effectively communicate over the course of the next 10,000 years that the integrity of the site must not be compromised in any way in order to prevent the release of the radiation contained within.” It’s an interesting visual challenge that must not rely on our own cultural biases. Here’s one artist’s response to the challenge, though perhaps it’s too reliant on the 20th century “Radioactive Danger” symbol. (more…)

From Charlie Todd of Improv Everywhere:

No Pants Subway Ride 2013

On Sunday, January 13th, 2013 tens of thousands of people took off their pants on subways in 60 cities in 25 countries around the world. In New York, our 12th Annual No Pants Subway Ride had over 4,000 participants, spread out over six meeting points and ten subway lines. Enjoy the video first and then go behind the scenes with our mission report and photos.

If you’re unfamiliar with this event, you might want to first read our history of The No Pants Subway Ride. Since this is the 12th year we’ve done this, there’s not too much to report other than it was another awesome time.

Created and Produced by Charlie Todd / Video produced by Deverge / music by Tyler Walker

More on Improv Everywhere here

From Jim E.:

Red shows you how to make a complete Christmas dinner without a kitchen.

From Weaponry to Symphony: An Artist Makes Music from Confiscated Guns
by Andri Antoniades
TakePart.com
December 2, 2012

Mexican artist Pedro Reyes transforms ‘agents of death’ into ‘instruments of life.’

Mexican artist Pedro Reyes transformed 6,700 used weapons into an orchestra of musical instruments as an act of protest against gun violence and a firearms industry he says is killing his people.

As part of a project Reyes calls Imagine, he worked with six musicians over several weeks to reimagine the weapons into objects that could create beautiful sounds. Together, they took the weapons apart and re-welded them into a variety of playable instruments that include wood, strings, and percussion.

Reyes writes on his website that the process of turning these “agents of death into instruments of life” was painful, albeit personally transformative. “It’s important to consider that many lives were taken with these weapons; as if a sort of exorcism was taking place the music expelled the demons they held, as well as being a requiem for lives lost.”

(more…)

Hackers’ Westboro Baptist Church Blitz Continues: UG Nazi, Jester, Anonymous Take Down Twitter Accounts, Sites
by Dominique Mosbergen
The Huffington Post
December 20, 2012

The online offensive against the Westboro Baptist Church continues to gain momentum.

The Twitter accounts of two prominent members of the hate-mongering group were apparently infiltrated this week by members of the infamous hacker collective UG Nazi.

On Monday, Wired.com confirmed that 15-year-old whiz kid “Cosmo the God,” a prolific member of the UG Nazi “hacktivist” group, had successfully carried out a takeover of @DearShirley, the Twitter account opened by WBC spokeswoman Shirley Lynn Phelps-Roper.

The Washington Post details the hijacking of Phelps-Roper’s account:

Phelps-Roper apparently sent her last authentic tweet hours after the Sandy Hook tragedy, announcing that the controversial group planned to picket outside the funerals of Newtown victims. Cosmo broke into the account on Monday morning, changing Phelps-Roper’s background to an illustration that said “pray for Newtown” and editing her profile information.

Read the rest of this article here.

NASA Johnson Style is a volunteer outreach video project created by the students of NASA’s Johnson Space Center. It was created as an educational parody of Psy’s Gangnam Style. The lyrics and scenes in the video have been re-imagined in order to inform the public about the amazing work going on at NASA and the Johnson Space Center.

via Neatorama

Learn about NASA: http://www.nasa.gov
Learn about the International Space Station: http://www.nasa.gov/station
Sign up to get space station sighting information sent to you: http://spotthestation.nasa.gov/

(more…)