News-Record.com

Obvioulsy "taste and sytle" are highly subjective and leave the door wide open for censorship.

Outrageous article in the N&R today about a lawyer's son in Raleigh who was going to community college in Wilmington who allegedly stole two Playstation III's from a UNC Wilmington student. Apparently the kid was known to have guns and was on the internert holding real guns etc and the cops were aware of this. The cops served a warrant and raided his apartment. Apparently he didn't answer the door, they broke it down, quickly confronted the kid, and the kid was shot since they thought he had a gun,...but it turned out to be a controller to the PSIII? (Some of the new games actually have guns as part of the controlling unit. Don't know if this was the case here.)

This is like the ultimate convergence of reality and cyber-reality since many of the games are cops and robber scenarios etc. Outrageous and incredibly sad to see something like this happen and so indicative of the absurdity of what we have created.

SCSavage, what a great illustration of media ignorance.
Let's break this down.
1) Where did you get the information to form the conclusions in your response here? The media?
2) Do you have any firsthand information about this incident?
3) Are you aware that these kids had been charged with ROBBERY WITH A DANGEROUS WEAPON after they savagely beat and severely injured their victim? That's just a bit more serious than "stealing."
4) Did you read that police found 3 guns in Strickland’s house?
5) Do you know for a fact that Strickland didn’t have a gun when he confronted the police officers?
6) How do you know what the cops were and weren't "aware of?" From the media?
7) Do you know for a fact that Strickland didn't answer the door? Or have you again taken the words of the media as fact?
8) Do you know for a fact that the police "quickly" confronted Strickland? How long did it take? Is that "quickly" as defined by you, or as defined by the police, or is there a specific time accepted as "quickly?"
9) You claim to know "why" the police used deadly force. How do you know that the police "thought" he had a gun?? Were you there? Are you a mind reader? Did each officer call you and tell you what he was thinking?
10) You seem to know more about this than the people that were there. You claim that Strickland was holding a game controller. How do you know that? Even the roommate only said Strickland "might" have been holding a controller. Do you have facts that no one else does?

I post this rather lengthy exercise to illustrate the power of the mainstream media over what the public believes about things in which they are not personally involved.
The headline of a story, the way a reporter's words are strung together, and the general tone of a reporter's story serve to form the public’s opinion of events.
SCSavage, your post above tells me you not only accepted as fact the media reports, but that you further made conclusions to the point that you believe you know what happened.
No one knows the facts of this sad incident but those involved. In the near future I believe we'll see the true facts come out after an investigation, but please don't be so quick to decide fact and fantasy from a news report.

Jaycee, all very good points. But therefore, everything I learned in school is suspect. the whole history of the world is suspect ie I wasn't alive during WWII etc. I didn't see Babe Ruth hit 60 homers. If people could only use their own immediate experience of what they eye-witnessed as an operationasl basis how could we live? Here I did think I peppered my post with enough "alegedlys and apparentlys" that I made it clear I might not know what the f--- I was talking about. Maybe i should have put in a few more.

That's what blogs are...duh...so people who don't know what the f--- they are talking about can be heard. One would think that would be self-evident.

"That's what blogs are...duh...so people who don't know what the f--- they are talking about can be heard."

And you have been.
I rest my case.

Jaycee, are you on some of the other blogs as "The Real Truth"? Have I finally found somone who really knows what's going on? Hope it wasn't too cold up on the mountaintop. So, let us have it. What do those stone tablets say?

Anybody know what was up with Joe Stafford at the schoolboard meeting last night? Joe was going on about how wonderful Mendenhall and Sykes were and how they would listen to you etc.
Joe, you gotta get checked guy. You couldn't have folks thinking you're any crazier if you'd have come to the meeting dressed as Deuteronomy and started singing "Memories" and then took a big dump in the middle of the floor.

We certainly admire persistence, and your campaign to get a school named after Ed Murrow was noble, but remember who you were dealing with.

People are worried about you. Seriously.

I think you missed my point, SCS.
It was that many people look to the news media for truth, but aren't getting it. Many people see a news story about something about which they have no personal knowledge and use it to form their opinions, even though the news media has been proven time and again to be biased.
Many people tailor their outlook on life and rant and scream and defend an opinion they formed solely from info fed them by the news media.
Get out into the world, see how things really happen, and temper your views knowing that the news media seldome has the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.
SecDef donald Rumsfeld once said this in a news conference in response to a question about an allegation by a newspaper: "The news media is more interested in getting it first than getting it right."

I agree with you 100%. The absolute truth is something that probably doesn't exist. I guess in the end it boils down to what various interested parties AGREE to call the truth. And that may be all we really have in the end. Unless, we're all Robinson Crusoe, (but then I guess we could still get into it with Friday).

Definetly time for nighty-nite.

Allen, here's a line with 21 spaces:

....................21

And here are three headlines from today's paper:

U.S. policy in Iraq deadly, destructive
Statesmen are needed to reverse debt and war
Anti-gay churches lack Christian compassion

These headlines have in common: (1) they're a lot longer than 21 characters, and (2) they're all wanking on about the evils of this conservative or that one. My conclusion is that you get free 20 characters or so if you're regurgitating the liberal party line. Letter writers suggesting these headlines, however:

U.S. Policy in Iraq Stunningly Effective
Statesmen Needed to Reverse Moral Depravity
Pro-Gay Pseudo-Christians Will Burn in Hell

would, I'm sure, be quickly confronted with the 21-character limit. Looks like another of the N&R's screw-the-conservatives tactics.

Brian:
Please read my post again. It said 21 characters PER LINE.

Read today that the Taliban is adopting a "Keep Your Head" policy in Afghanistan, where they are offering amnesty and rehab to any Islamists in the country who have supported the western incursion into the country. Who said people don't change. Let's see how many phonecalls they get.

(NOTE To JAYCEE- I did READ this. Now it may or may not be true. For all I know they still my be cutting heads off or it may be a trick. Hopefully the people over there will heed your advice.

And if you act now, they'll throw in a training manuel; "Killing Teachers: The Basics"

Absolutely free