Drudge has a story claiming the following:

Two congressional Democrats called Wednesday for an investigation into recent activities by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, suggesting that efforts by the Republican chairman of the private nonprofit to add more conservative programs onto PBS may violate federal law.

He refers specifically to Rep. David Obey, D-Wis., and Rep. John D. Dingell, D-Mich.

They called recent actions taken by CPB Chairman Kenneth Tomlinson “disturbing'’ and “extremely troubling.'’

Maybe it’s all just a ploy to make people think PBS is now a fair and balanced public broadcasting organization.

Laura Gottlieb observes the discrimination this way:

I see, so it’s FINE for PBS to openly promote NPR, the self-proclaimed socialist radio hub of the United States; and it’s OK for C[sic]BS to openly run issue-advocacy programs for John Kerry. But hire more conservatives…Oh no! That’s a violation of federal law. We must investigate!

The PRM:

Just another fine example of spoiled brat partisan politics by the Democrats in congress. They obviously feel like PBS is their “ball” and since others now want to play with it they are simply going to try to take their ball and go home.

PunditGuy says it’s more of the same:

All the Democrats know is obstruction. They will lose in 2006. They’ll lose the presidency in 2008…someone over there has to wake up and understand that Americans don’t elect people who complain, who point fingers, and don’t have solutions.

The Western Standard calls it a double standard.

Their view of the American public excludes the millions who don’t share the socialist-type vision of outfits like PBS. If you don’t “relate to the message”, you basically don’t exist and have no opinion worth expressing apparently.

McGeeHee thinks it has to be a joke.

On the other hand, Karen wants you to sign a petition to keep the liberal bias. Or something like that.

When right-wingers call for “balance”, what they really mean is that they don’t want liberals to have a voice at all — whether it’s in the classroom, or on television. In fact, conservatives used to call for the complete dismantling of public television, in part because of its supposed bias, but mostly out of the general principle that it’s not the government’s business to fund television programs. As I’ve said before, conservatism has become something very different than it was when I was conservative — it used to be about freedom, and getting the government out of our lives. (And, if you haven’t noticed, I’m still a strong civil libertarian.) Now, it seems to be all about imposing a right-wing form of political correctness on everybody else.

Interesting.

From July 1998 through the end of 2003, PETA killed over 10,000 dogs, cats, and other “companion animals” — at its Norfolk, Virginia headquarters. That’s more than five defenseless animals every day. Not counting the dogs and cats PETA spayed and neutered, the group put to death over 85 percent of the animals it took in during 2003 alone. And its angel-of-death pattern shows no sign of changing.

And check out some of these ads.

In case you came looking and didn’t find us for the last day and a half or so, our blog host was down hard. Looks like it’s all back up and running now…

Escaping the Matrix, by Gregory Boyd and Al Larson, presents an absolutely fascinating concept. The ideas presented in this book are certainly interesting, and are certainly ones that I have not been exposed to previously.

Before evaluating the content, however, a brief discussion of the actual writing itself is in order. Let it be known that I’m generally not a reader of “self help,” “feel good,” “inspirational” writings. I don’t normally enjoy or gain much personal growth through reading most of the motivational psycho-babble books on the market. However this book was written in such a way that I was fascinated by it. As suggested by the title, the authors make their point through comparison to the popular Matrix movies and they hold the reader’s interest through dialogue-type segments (like reading the script for a play or a movie). I found the book to be an easy read, it’s a book that is easy to put down and pick back up again, and it held my interest (which is something of a feat for this genre of writing).

The basic premise of the book is that the world in which we live is more like the Matrix as portrayed in the movie “The Matrix” than we realize.

The authors argue that “from a Biblical and neurological perspective, the premise of the Matrix movies is not only possible, but to a significant degree it’s true!” (p.7-8). The gist of the neurological argument is that the neurotransmitters in our brain are programmed by our environment, the people and events that impact our lives, that much of our environment is controlled by Satan, and therefore many of our subconcious responses are actually counter to what is actually true.

The book is really geared toward the Christian who feels like he or she is missing something, is struggling and not able to become free, and is frustrated with this gap because it falls short of the promises of the Bible. The point of the book is to teach the reader to identify those items which are part of “the Matrix,” the lies that our neuro-transmitters have been programmed to assume are true, and to correct them.

I found extremely fascinating the chapter which included exercises on how we “do” our memories. It’s not a discussion of the chemistry of how it happens, but it’s an examination of what each individual experiences when they are remembering. Still v. video, b/w v. Color, associated v. disassociated perspectives, silent v. with sound, etc. The author is making a convincing case that we do not think primarily in concepts but rather in concrete, sensory data.

The last section of the book is a series of examples of interactions the authors have had in which they are “reprogramming” the mind of individuals who were experiencing various negative things (depression, phobia, etc). They distinguish between what is experienced as real and what is actually true (a la, the Matrix).

I found this book extremely fascinating, if only because the concept was completely new to me. As such I would recommend it much more highly than many of the other books you would find in the same aisle at the local Christian bookstore, if you are looking for a new perspective and a new approach to experiencing true freedom.

Disclaimer: This book was reviewed for Mind & Media. The book being reviewed was given to as a gift from the Publisher in exchange for this review. However, I was under no obligation to give this book a positive review, and will not hesitate to give a negative review in the future, should any book be deserving of it!

UPDATE: Check out this review. It’s a lot more in depth than mind and makes some really valid points.