Posts by Craig Ranapia
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Hard News: Friday Music! Mic drops and…, in reply to Russell Brown,
She’s right that it’s a radio format, not a music genre, but the urban contemporary format and its name were the creation of the legendary black radio DJ Frankie Crocker. The format’s success was a crucial breakthrough for soul, funk and R&B artists in mainstream radio and it changed the American radio industry.
Sure, and I agree with you that I don't think RMNZ is a clot of racists. Neither does Aaradhna -- what she actually said was a lot more complex and nuanced than the "Aardhna cries racist" headlines. Though I guess nobody should be expecting The Herald to be leading a discussion that (thank God) was happening on much more thoughtful level elsewhere.
But "urban" does still have a baggage attached, and as I said on Twitter it's hard to believe a Frankie Crocker could make it in an increasingly narrow-cast commercial radio market today. But it's taking nothing away from the man's eclecticism (which included plenty of white artists) -- or the enormous influence he had on a dazzling array of artists -- to grant he played a lot of black and Hispanic music "white-orientated" radio wouldn't touch with the proverbial barge pole.
Hell, about the only positive thing that came out of Prince death was a lot of history lessons being laid down. It's never quite as simple as black and white, but colour lines aren't irrelevant either.
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Up Front: Giving It the Bish, in reply to Emma Hart,
Yeah, this is exactly how I feel. To get religious-based tax-exempt status you MUST proselytise, and I cannot see any justification for that. Do actual charity work, like Presbyterian Support Services or the Anglican City Mission, go for it. If you don't, fuck right off.
Indeed - though I'd like to add another small (off-topic) qualification there. If you're claiming tax benefits and other public support for your charitable activities, you can fuck right off about turning around and claiming you have the right to exemptions from civil laws because... religious freedom. As Samatha Bee noted with typical asperity on Full Frontal a few weeks back, this bullshit from Catholic hospitals in the US (which incidentally receive tens of billions in direct and indirect public funding every year) is a death sentence for women for whom being driven hundreds of miles to get the termination that will save them isn't really an option.
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Hard News: The fake news problem, in reply to Tom Semmens,
he US MSM is in a state of virtual melt down over Trump, often simply because he plans to do things differently.
Uh, OK Tom. I’ll give you this, if you’re not an obsessive American politics nerd the minutae of any transition can seem petty and trivial. Especially in New Zealand where, if there’s a change of government next year the process is comparatively simple and nonpolitical.
But yeah, it actually does matter when the Trump Transition is too busy throwing an internal purge to send over a memorandum of understand without which the Obama Administration staff can’t legally talk to them.
It does matter when (apparently) a low-level staffer was asking about how to get Trump’s children top secret security clearances when the freaking Prime Minister of Japan’s staff couldn’t get a call returned about an up coming meeting.
And it doesn’t inspire confidence when scheduled meeting at The Pentagon, the Department of Energy (that oversees America’s nuclear weapons) and the Department of State were blown off by Transition staffers.
It seems to me that both of you read his post from a position of an angry liberal who then seized on a ’factual error” that allowed you to dismiss his entire point.
No shit, Sherlock. Around here, when I’ve been careless on simple points of fact (please note the absence of sneer quotes around the F-word) I don’t expect to be taken seriously. If that FUBARs my otherwise solid argument, that’s on me.
But thanks for unwittingly nailing the problem with “fake” news – if you think facts don’t really matter as long as you achieve a desired end, why the hell should anyone else? And they won’t. Never mind the end consequence of that is millions of people being left without healthcare. Or Trump making people promises he’s never going to fulfil because nobody can. Take credit for something that happened years before you went into politics? Pft…
Reality doesn’t go away just because you choose to pretend its no longer there.
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And the Daily fucking Mail reported it as news.
Of course The Mail did -- they were doing "fake news" before it became trendy. This is far from a comprehensive list, and while a couple of these are so damn stupid they're funny others aren't even slightly amusing. .
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Hard News: The fake news problem, in reply to Deborah,
Hear hear! Radio NZ is part of the MSM, and we've all been relying on it heavily for the past 36 hours or so. And having dealt with Matt Nippert with respect to a few tax stories, I'm very impressed by the way he digs and digs and digs to get information out of government and big business.
Sure, and I'm going to keep giving full credit where due but I've also literally broken a remote after a full day of Radio NZ (and everyone else) contorting themselves to avoid call Steve Bannon what he obviously is -- the publisher or an apologetic hate site now squatting at the heart of American Government.
Yes, "fake news" is a terrible thing, but "real" news isn't looking terribly healthy either.
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But I will tell you one thing: think twice before you complain about the “mainstream media”. News organisations aren’t perfect, but they’ve been basically your only bulwark against all this.
And they’ve got plenty of bullshit of their own to answer for, so can I do both?
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Meanwhile, Housing New Zealand, how are you getting along at making your rental stock warm, dry and inhospitable to black mould and other things that have proven negative health outcomes for your tenants?
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Hard News: Trump's Dummkopfs, in reply to simon g,
But Kaine made the classic politician’s mistake of thinking “People will only know the truth if I tell it, I need to speak more”.
On Full Frontal tonight, I think Samatha Bee made an excellent point: Kaine spent way too much time reminding us all what we already know about Trump, and not enough about what too many people don't about boiling cess pit of far-right bigotry and dubious economic stewardship hiding in plain sight in Indiana. This really matters more than usual, because he's going to be setting the agenda of a Trump Administration when the President's too tired after a long night of fatslut-shaming Tweets.
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Up Front: Wonder Bi, in reply to Rich Lock,
I wond….thought about this, too. I suspect it’s because Nazis have been done
to death (as it were) in recent superhero blockbusters, Capt America being the most obvious example.Definitely -- and, hell, we're in the middle of the World War One centennial, and if Diana wanted an introduction to Man's World at it's worse the killing fields of the Western Front isn't a bad way to go.
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Hard News: Trump's Dummkopfs, in reply to Rich Lock,
So you only read it for the articles…?
I certainly don't buy it for the pictures, because when even a confirmed bachelor like me can tell no woman's body looks like that outside Photoshop? Ick...