tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-306397442011-04-21T14:17:48.011-07:00There are three major avenues through which Americans gain access to, update, and transmit knowledge. These are the Academy, the Sciences, and the Press. Recently, the extreme right wing of the Republican Party has succeeded in shedding baseless doubt on all three. The purpose of PressCleanser is to reverse this trend.Daniel Dickson-LaPradehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10931226862964944768noreply@blogger.comBlogger151100tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30639744.post-1163360700664994622006-11-12T11:43:00.000-08:002006-12-24T06:54:03.626-08:00

This is what happens when you put aside your blog for a little while:1) you get your Master's degree finished. I got my Master's degree finished!2) you procreate. Our new baby girl, Matilda, was born on November 3rd (6 lb., 9 oz, 18 in. long).Be warned!Hope to put up a post some time before the end of November. Hope also to learn how to lift cars with my mind before Christmas. A trifle unsure

Daniel Dickson-LaPradehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10931226862964944768noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30639744.post-1157986802159985322006-09-16T16:36:00.000-07:002006-09-17T22:48:58.743-07:00

Poor ABC. They try their hardest to do justice to a complex and horrifying historical event--the terror attacks of 9/11. They work night and day to produce a solid finished product. And what happens? Clintonistas bash them to pieces during a time when we should be concentrating on national healing.And if you believe that little narrative, I have some swampland in Florida to sell you.The Path to 9

Daniel Dickson-LaPradehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10931226862964944768noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30639744.post-1158011064533917832006-09-11T14:31:00.000-07:002006-09-13T09:14:58.033-07:00

My readership is small, but faithful, and your comments often cheer me up when I would otherwise feel blue.For this reason, I am especially sad at having to make the following announcement.Due to a mild family emergency (everything is okay now, thank goodness), I have not been able to provide you with an entry this week. I will have an entry this coming Saturday on ABC's atrocious misinfomentary

Daniel Dickson-LaPradehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10931226862964944768noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30639744.post-1154783566318945642006-09-02T15:45:00.000-07:002006-09-08T18:02:21.196-07:00

Stumbling to campus with a cup of coffee in my fist, I almost ran right into the sign: "Warning: Genocide Photos Ahead."Great, I thought, it's gonna be one of those days.The protest on OU's South Oval was called the Genocide Awareness Project, and it was put on by a rabidly pro-life group called the Center for Bio-Ethical Reform (CBR). It consisted of several full-color signs, six by thirteen

Daniel Dickson-LaPradehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10931226862964944768noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30639744.post-1155072598631697012006-08-26T14:09:00.000-07:002006-09-02T06:52:42.123-07:00

Over a sheet of notebook paper and a homemade mocha the other day, I realized that I have enough entry ideas to last me through Valentine's Day 2007. It's so bad I don't know what to cover next: John Stossel's conflict of interest with the Palmer Chitester Fund? NCATE's capitulation to NAS and FIRE over the dreaded phrase "social justice"? The fact that the Treasury Department's own statistics

Daniel Dickson-LaPradehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10931226862964944768noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30639744.post-1155908120903318812006-08-18T06:24:00.000-07:002006-08-18T06:35:23.380-07:00

You might remember the previous post I did about the fake news/covert propaganda pieces called VNRs (video news releases). Well, thanks to the Center for Media and Democracy study on VNRs which I described in that post, the FCC has now sent letters to 77 different television stations "[asking] station managers for information regarding agreements between the stations and the creators of the news

Daniel Dickson-LaPradehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10931226862964944768noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30639744.post-1155402150494590172006-08-17T09:58:00.000-07:002006-08-17T08:58:53.076-07:00

Unfortunately, summer vacation is almost over. Fortunately, the wife and I will be taking one last vacation before school starts. Unfortunately, these two things together mean that there will be no blog entry this week. Sorry, readers!But not to worry: I will be back again with a fresh, delicious, and wholesome entry on August the 26th. In the meantime, check out Jim Woodring's blog (link at

Daniel Dickson-LaPradehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10931226862964944768noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30639744.post-1152392872686332052006-08-12T13:28:00.000-07:002006-08-16T11:54:15.960-07:00

The National Association of Scholars (NAS) is one of those nasty, right-wing, anti-academic think tanks that give me hives. On June 29, 2006, this group announced some truly shocking news about American universities: they apparently have "an obsession with diversity unparalleled in any other sector of American opinion leadership." On university websites, the NAS claims, "diversity" gets more play

Daniel Dickson-LaPradehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10931226862964944768noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30639744.post-1154040121096962482006-08-05T15:19:00.000-07:002006-08-12T07:57:30.683-07:00

On the news late one night, a story comes on about the horrors of eczema (must be a slow news day). After a brief description of the disease, the reporter brings a doctor on to describe a new treatment: an ointment called MimyX. The report ends, the anchor signs off, and you flip to something more interesting--not realizing that the news report you have just watched was an advertisement by the

Daniel Dickson-LaPradehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10931226862964944768noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30639744.post-1153603290439259272006-07-29T13:55:00.000-07:002006-08-02T06:02:18.110-07:00

While doing research for a previous entry about far-right attacks on the Academy, I came across this amusing comment from a fellow named Chris Williams. Chris was responding to an Inside Higher Education story which unmasked one of right-wing zealot David Horowitz's many witch hunts in academia: "Horowitz gets 49 incidents right and one wrong. On the 49, silence or denial. On the one, great

Daniel Dickson-LaPradehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10931226862964944768noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30639744.post-1152990467261840492006-07-22T11:26:00.000-07:002006-07-22T12:02:33.000-07:00

In theory, a think tank is a non-profit organization which provides expertise of some kind to organizations which don't have this expertise themselves. In the 1970s and '80s, however, something changed: think tanks, instead of selling knowledge and expertise, began selling ignorance and uncertainty. A 1969 document from the Brown and Williamson tobacco company which was recently made public

Daniel Dickson-LaPradehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10931226862964944768noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30639744.post-1152545882604833382006-07-15T08:15:00.000-07:002006-07-15T11:23:58.700-07:00

John Stossel's atrocious lack of journalistic integrity (or ability?) has been amply documented by Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting, Media Transparency, and Media Matters for America. Whether he is spewing misinformation about the public school system (in 1999 and again in 2006), pretending that there is no scientific consensus on global warming (here, here, here, and here), or making an ass of

Daniel Dickson-LaPradehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10931226862964944768noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30639744.post-1152386743998777662006-07-08T11:47:00.000-07:002006-07-14T10:27:21.646-07:00

Coulter's relentless attacks agains 9-11 widows in Godless seem to get all the press. Less well publicized are her equally idiotic and bitter attacks against science--specifically, againstthe theory of evolution.She states, for example, that there is no fossil evidence for the theory of evolution, which is horse pucky, as you can see here. She also quotes scientists out of context, misleads her

Daniel Dickson-LaPradehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10931226862964944768noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30639744.post-1152107723360966622006-07-05T06:38:00.000-07:002006-07-14T10:24:33.483-07:00

David Horowitz and his group Students for Academic Freedom (SAF) are no darn good, as I discuss in my previous post, but they are hardly the only ones dedicated to subverting the academy. The group Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE), headed by Greg Lukianoff, is another honey. In a series of press releases in February and May of 2005, FIRE peddled the story of a student in Rhode

Daniel Dickson-LaPradehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10931226862964944768noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30639744.post-1152019937373912012006-07-04T06:00:00.000-07:002006-07-09T14:35:45.413-07:00

To hear the right-wingers tell it, you'd think that it was impossible to get a college degree in this country without spitting on the cross, burning the Constitution, and memorizing Chairman Mao's Little Red Book. Supposedly, academia is a liberal lovefest.David Horowitz buys into this idea. He the right-wing founder of one of my least favorite organizations, the poorly named Students for

Daniel Dickson-LaPradehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10931226862964944768noreply@blogger.com1