FOX Scolds The Simpsons
By Staff, ICV2.com
Fox News Network has revealed just how intelligent they think their viewers are. The unofficial voice of the right wing recently threatened to sue The Simpsons for a parody that aired on the program. Fox, which helped Al Franken sell books late this summer by suing him over the book’s tongue-in-cheek title, did not follow through on the threat but slapped The Simpsons‘ wrist, saying that a scrolling ‘news crawl’ at the bottom of a viewer’s television screen might confuse viewers.
http://www.icv2.com/articles/home/3745.html
Top 10 Activist Campuses
By Staff, Mother Jones
Mother Jones has just released its annual round-up of the country’s hottest hot-beds of student activism. Topping this year’s list: Tehran University.
http://www.motherjones.com/news/outfront/2003/36/ma_508_01.html
Help Your Mother, Russia
By Laura Williams, E/The Environmental Magazine
Despite Chernobyl and other environmental disasters, Russia has a long history of funding projects to protect its virgin forests and countless natural wonders from human impact. The protected land — called zapovednik — received valuable Western dollars during the economic transition of the 1990s, but environmentalists fear that the government’s current policies toward development and mineral extraction may be damaging these pristine lands and are looking to the public for help.
http://www.enn.com/news/2003-10-24/s_9201.asp
Nike Sues Artists over Satire
The European art group 0100101110101101.ORG has created a fake Nike website, Nike Ground, which portrays the company as real-estate vultures who buy streets and squares in cities around the world in order to rename them and install giant monuments of the swoosh. Nike has issued a 30-page injunction demanding the removal of its copyrighted material from the site.
http://www.nikeground.com/
It’s a Bird, It’s a Plane, It’s…Identity Theft!
By Kim Zetter, Wired News
Concerned about identity theft? Look to the sky for the solution. That’s what a privacy group did when it hired a skywriter to write the Social Security number of Citigroup CEO Charles Prince above New York City last week, protesting the bank’s fluffy stance on privacy regulations.
http://go.hotwired.com/news/business/0,1367,60964,00.html
Green Light, Red Light
By Jodi Upton, The Detroit News
As if Road Rage weren’t trouble enough already, now motorists can buy a gadget to change stoplights from red to green. Originally designed for police and firefighters, the Mobil Infrared Transmitter, or MIRT, is now available on the web for about $300.
http://www.detnews.com/2003/commuting/0310/26/a01-307303.htm