HOAXES, PRANKS & WEIRDNESS

I just want to pass on a couple of sites I stumbled across this morning:

THE MUSEUM OF HOAXES CLICK HERE

BOING BOING CLICK HERE

and one of my all-time classic faves:

LANDOVER BAPTIST CHURCH CLICK HERE

Hours of entertainment ...

NM ODs ON CAMPAIGN ADS

As published in The Santa Fe New Mexican
Nov. 28, 2004

(Somehow this one missed the New Mexican's web site.)

So you think you saw significantly more campaign commercials on television this year than you saw during past election seasons?

You’re right.

According to a new study by a Washington, D.C.-based organization called the Alliance for Better Campaigns, politicians spent an estimated $28 million on campaign commercials in the Albuquerque/Santa Fe market this year.

That’s nearly four times the amount spent in 2000, the previous presidential-election year.

Furthermore, the Albuquerque/Santa Fe market, while ranked 47th in market-area population, ranked eighth in the nation for number of political commercials aired in the study. Meanwhile, only six television stations in the country aired more political ads than KOAT-TV, Albuquerque’s ABC affiliate.

“Television air time is the No. 1 cost center for candidates in competitive races,” said Meredith McGehee, president of the Alliance for Better Campaigns.

She made the point that the amount of political-ad revenue nationwide is “an enormous election-year windfall for broadcasters, who receive free licenses to operate on the publicly owned airwaves.”

New Mexico got so many political ads, because it was considered one of a handful of battleground states. Democrat Al Gore beat Republican George W. Bush here in 2000 by 366 votes. This year, the polls were close throughout the race. Bush eventually defeated Democrat John Kerry here by about 6,000 votes — less than 1 percent.
According to the study, which used figures compiled by a private firm called Campaign Media Analysis Group, New Mexico stations aired more than 38,000 political ads this year.

This includes ads for presidential candidates as well as state and local candidates, McGehee said in a telephone interview last week.

Besides the presidential race, candidates in Congressional District 1 — Republican incumbent Heather Wilson and unsuccessful Democratic challenger Richard Romero — both ran intensive television-ad campaigns.

In the previous presidential-election year, Albuquerque stations aired 18,871 political commercials at a cost of $7,169,600, according to the Alliance for Better Campaigns statistics.

Even though 2002 wasn’t a presidential year, politicos paid more than $10 million for more than 21,000 television commercials.

In a written statement announcing the release of the study, McGehee said the heavy volume of political advertising in presidential battleground states far outweighed the amount of news coverage of the election.

This adds weight to the argument made by critics of television news that people who get most of their news from television are more likely to be influenced by political commercials.

Citing statistics from the Lear Center Local News Archive, she said 30 minutes of local news in battleground states averaged almost six minutes of campaign advertising, but only three minutes of campaign news. Forty-five percent of all television campaign stories were about strategy or polls, while only 29 percent focused on campaign issues. Ad-watch stories, which check the truthfulness of political spots, made up less than 1 percent of campaign stories in the study’s sample, McGehee said.

New Mexico wasn’t one of the 11 television markets included in that study. However, in a 2002 study by the Lear Center, Albuquerque stations’ percentages of campaign stories were in line with those of other stations in the study.

The Alliance for Better Campaigns is a nonpartisan, nonprofit organization dedicated to reducing the cost of campaigns and increasing the flow of issue-based political information before elections. The organization’s honorary co-chairmen are former Presidents Jimmy Carter and Gerald Ford and retired CBS news anchor Walter Cronkite.

TERRELL'S SOUND WORLD PLAYLIST

Sunday, November 28, 2004
KSFR, Santa Fe, N.M.
Now Webcasting
10 p.m. to midnight Sundays (Mountain Time)
Host: Steve Terrell

OPENING THEME: Let it Out (Let it All Hang Out) by The Hombres
Thanksgiving in Reno by Too Much Joy
Friends Like Mine by The Donnas
Mt. Everest by Royal Crescent Mob
The Town That Lost Its Groove Supply by The Minus 5
Repo Man by Iggy Pop
Down to the Well by The Pixies
Special Rate Sherry by Vinnie Santino
Sex With My Hat by The Firesign Theatre

Sentimental Marching Song by Sally Timms
Big Zombie by The Mekons
Wedding Dress by Johnny Dowd
Xracothep by The Fall
No, I'm Ironman by The Butthole Surfers
King Kong by Tom Waits
Devil Town by Daniel Johnston
If I Couldn't Say a Word by Lamar Nelson


Agua Boogy by Parliment
Quickie by George Clinton
Blasters by Bootsy's New Rubber Band
Let's Take It To the Stage by Funkadelic

Hyperballad by The Twilight Singers
I Need Love by NRBQ
Surf's Up by Brian Wilson
Boobytrappin' by David Holmes
God Walks Among Us Now by The Flaming Lips
The Kingdom of Heaven is Within You by Mother Earth
My Little Corner of the World by Yo La Tengo
CLOSING THEME: Over the Rainbow by Jerry Lee Lewis

THIS MAN NEEDS NO INTRODUCTION

And yet I've been asked to introduce Billy Joe Shaver next Saturday at the screening of the documentary The Portrait of Billy Joe at The Santa Fe Film Festival. The screening is scheduled for 2 p.m. Dec. 4 at the CCA.

I'll also be introducing the documentary Searching For The Wrong-Eyed Jesus for the film festival. This screening is 8:45 p.m. Thursday Dec. 2 at The Screen. (For my review. scroll down a couple of posts below.)

THE SANTA FE OPRY PLAYLIST

Friday, November 26, 2004
KSFR, Santa Fe, NM
Now Webcasting
10 p.m. to midnight Fridays MDT
Host: Steve Terrell

OPENING THEME: Buckaroo by Buck Owens & The Buckaroos
You Asked Me To by Shaver
Blacklisted by Neko Case
Live Fast, Love Hard, Die Young by Faron Young
4,000 Rooms in Amarillo by Sid Hausman & Washtub Jerry
You Win Again by Mother Earth
You're the Reason Our Kids Are Ugly by Conway Twitty & Loretta Lynn
Queen of Country by Nancy Apple
Delta Land by Susie Salley
Love Birds by Roy D. Mercer

Dying Breed by Lonesome Bob with Allison Moorer
Fire and Water by Buddy Miller
I Just Lost My Mind by Rex Hobart & His Misery Boys
Cold War by Gerraint Watkins
Out on the Highway by Eric Hisaw
Nashville Radio by Jon Langford
Red or Green by Lenny Roybal
Carve That Possum by Uncle Dave Macon

Searching For The Wrong-Eyed Jesus Set
Still Waters by Jim White
First There Was by Johnny Dowd
Phyllis Ruth by 16 Horsepower
When That Helicopter Comes by The Handsome Family
Graveyard by Trailer Bride
10 Miles to Go on a 9 Mile Road by Jim White

1952 Vincent Black Lightning by The Del McCoury Band
21st Century Garbage Man by Joe West
A Six Pack to Go by Hank Thompson
Dear Mother by Acie Cargill
I Don't Want to Get Adjusted by Iris DeMent
Thanksgiving by Loudon Wainwright III
CLOSING THEME: Comin' Down by The Meat Puppets

Steve Terrell is proud to report to the monthly Freeform American Roots Radio list