Review: "Amusing Ourselves to Death: Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business" by Neil Postman

This review is based on the 1st edition of Neil Postman's Amusing Ourselves to Death: Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business. There is a 20th Anniversary Edition with an introduction by Professor Postman's son.

Professor Postman's book claims that electronic media, characterized by immediacy, compels our discourse to be decontextualized and trivial, i.e. entertaining. Even worse, their dominance has shaped consumers' expectations of all other media so that they must also become decontextualized and trivial to gain acceptance.

Man, this guy is a buzzkill!

Minority Report Law? Cheney’s 1% Preemptive Doctrine of Prosecution and the Case of Ziyad Yaghi

Satyagraha911.org conducted an interview about the case of Ziyad Yaghi, a Muslim US citizen victim of the "War on Terror." The interview covers Ziyad's background, trial and imprisonment. Laila Yaghi, Ziyad's mother, Dr. Mel Underbakke of the National Coalition to Protect Civil Freedoms and journalist Siraj Davis participate in the interview.

Minority Report Law? Cheney’s 1% Preemptive Doctrine of Prosecution and the Case of Ziyad Yaghi... http://t.co/pbhprQigQt
— siraj davis (@sirajdavis) March 23, 2014

Dead Man Tell No Tales: Susan Zalkind's Story on Ibragim Todashev

Check out @ThisAmerLife episode 519: 'Dead Men Tell No Tales.' http://t.co/IyJkGD89pk
— CAIR National (@CAIRNational) March 10, 2014

This American Life is one of my favorite National Public Radio programs. This episode focuses in another of the glorious episodes in the United States's War on Terror, about which this blog has a series of entries.
Updated March 24, 2013.

BREAKING: FTF has obtained a leaked copy of the FBI's Todashev report. http://t.co/dUSz4Uyh9b

— Fire Tom Friedman (@firetomfriedman) March 24, 2014

Confronting Anti-Black Racism & Tribalism in the Ummah

This is a recording of the radio show I mentioned last week.

Important Radio Discussion This Saturday on Intra-Muslim Racism

From Dawud Walid's blog: (I've added the date and a few links)

Arab American Association of New York Director Linda Sarsour and Dawud Walid are scheduled to be 900 AM WURD in Philadelphia this Saturday (Nov 30, 2013) from 5pm to 6pm Eastern to discuss the issue of the usage of the slur “abeed” and the broader issue of intra-Muslim racism and tribalism.

Islam Today Radio Show is hosted weekly by University of Pennsylvania Chaplain Kameelah Rashad. The show may be listened to live-streaming at www.900amwurd.com.  Callers may join the conversation at (866) 361-0900 or (215) 634-8065.

Updated December 2, 2013: A recording is available online.

Listen to Ahmad Bedier & Samar Jarrah's Weekly Radio Show

Ahmed Bedier (@Bedier) and Samar Dahmash Jarrah (@ArabVoicesSpeak) host a talk show weekly on True Talk on Tampa, Florida community radio station WMNF 88.5 FM.

If you are not in range, you can download the shows to your computer. The URL for the podcast feed is http://feeds.feedburner.com/truetalk. In iTunes, paste this URL into Advance --> Subscribe to Podcast. You can also use other RSS readers.

You can also listen to the show live on your mobile device or even by calling a US phone number.

Encourage them by sending a Tweet, e-mail or a donation!