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A Tribute to SourceWatch Contributor, Hugh Manatee

One of SourceWatch's long-time contributors, Kenneth Turner II, who wrote entries under the user name "Hugh Manatee" passed away after a brave battle against cancer. Although I only knew Ken for a short time, he seemed to be such a good, kind and determined soul with tremendous intelligence and passion. He was a powerful and eloquent voice for peace and against injustice and for human rights and our Constitution, and I hope that visitors to our site will visit his user page, User:Hugh Manatee, to be inspired by his words and ideas, as we make this tribute to him. He helped create articles documenting the Bush Administration's torture policies and apologists, and he helped tell the real story about a range of policies he researched in detail. He also showed many new users how to use the tool of SourceWatch to help tell the people's history of these policies. And, so it is with deepest appreciation that we pause to honor Ken's life and his passing. His sister's tribute is reprinted in full below. SourceWatch will miss Hugh Manatee's appeals to our humanity on our site and in the wider world. --Lisa Graves, Executive Director of the Center for Media and Democracy

From his sister, Dru: As most of you are aware, he was diagnosed with multiple myeloma about a year ago and he has been fighting that disease with humor and humility for months. Ken was a multitalented, eccentrically funny, and passionately opinionated, maniac and has been a political blogger for many years; but the chats and close connections he established over the last few months were what really sustained him through his ordeal and the family thanks each and every one of you who helped him.

Ken was a lifetime resident of Las Vegas, Nevada. He graduated from Las Vegas High School in 1973 and became a near legend there; the legend known as Toad. He attended UNLV but I don't know if he actually graduated. He didn't need a degree; frankly he was usually more intelligent and informed than many of his professors and would only stay focused if something really interested him. In his life time he played drums in a band, at a nightclub off the Las Vegas Strip; worked as a landscaper on golf courses, until his knees gave out from football injuries; drove a cab in Vegas for many, many, many years and finally he became a Techno Wiz.

He was a philosopher by day and in his heart at night, a poet and to me he will always be that "funny round headed kid." He was actually noted for being an "honest cab driver." I often thought he utilized his cab as his first Blog Site. Just before his death, he'd started creating wonderful artwork on his computer which he called fractals, as I said a multifaceted individual; his passing deprives the world of a very unique person with a rare & uncommon perspective.

In his last few years, he devoted himself to fighting injustice, hypocrisy, and well let's face it...stupidity; through his various web sites and Blogs, many of you may also have known him by some of his other pseudonyms on Talking Points Memo or other sites: PsuedoCyAnts, casualcabbie, impietease, AustinTayshus, and TOAD. "Nobody wants a Toad on the dole!"

Ken died in his sleep, finally peaceful because of the medication. His partner Melody and I were with him through his last night and another sister, Candy, was with him when he actually passed.

Attached is a link to his obituary published in the Las Vegas Review-Journal: http://www.legacy.com/obituaries/lvrj/obituary.aspx?n=kenneth-turner&pid=144515095

Again thank you for your thoughts and for your support and friendship to my brother; his friends and followers were his blessing, his ability to share his thoughts and ideas with like minded others was his salvation, and being funny, passionate, and opinionated was his vocation.

Nam-myoho-renge-kyo love, sister dru

Featured Work
Charles (left) and David Koch

American Politics is Getting All Koch'ed Up

by Anne Landman The grassroots pressure group Americans for Prosperity (AFP), that actively fought health care reform, boasts "our citizen activists" are "the heart and soul" of the organization. So AFP wants the public and the media to believe. But an exhaustive report in the August 30, 2010 issue of The New Yorker magazine, shows that the heart and soul behind AFP are really the oil billionaire brothers David and Charles Koch of Koch Industries, whose privately-owned oil enterprise has made them among the richest men in America. In addition to petroleum interests, the Kochs also own a host of familiar products like Brawny paper towels, Dixie cups, Georgia-Pacific lumber, Stainmaster carpet and Lycra. Their massive combined wealth makes them the third richest people in the country, behind only Bill Gates and Warren Buffett, who are better known to the public. The Kochs have intentionally obscured their involvement on the American political scene through the creation of an elaborate network of front groups, think tanks, foundations and astroturf organizations, but the public is quickly getting to know the Koch brothers better. Given their extreme wealth and pervasive efforts to manipulate the American public, it is a name everyone should get to know very, very well. Read more of this item here.

Recent blogs from CMD
Elizabeth Warren

We Still Need Your Help: Urge the President to Put Warren to Work!

Elizabeth Warren has been a strong and consistent critic of the failures of the Home Affordable Modification Program in her position on the Congressional Oversight Panel for the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) bailout. She's also been a strong advocate for consumers through the entire bailout mess. Tell President Obama to put Warren to work by appointing her as head of the new Consumer Financial Protection Bureau by signing our petition today!

Up In Arms Over Brand Obama's Insult

by Steve Horn

A year and a half after his November 4, 2008 election, the progressive left is, rightfully, up in arms over the lack of integrity President Barack Obama has shown across the gamut of burning contemporary political issues. These include, but are not limited to issues such as war, health care, secrecy, warrantless wiretapping, and environmental issues, among many others. Read the rest of this item here.

T. Boone Pickens and the Truth about All that Drilling

by Steve Horn
The home page of T. Boone Pickens' "Pickens Plan" is emblematic of the oil industry's aggressive push to drill for natural gas in the Marcellus Shale basin. The page [http://www.pickensplan.com/act/ greets visitors with the blaring headline, "WE MUST BREAK AMERICA’S ADDICTION TO FOREIGN OIL. The Pickens Plan will do it, but we need your help." In the age of the perpetual War on terrorism, politicians, pundits and other U.S. demagogues have successfully used fear as a bargaining chip. Fear-mongering is a method of Orwellian thought control. In this example, Pickens equates foreign oil with evil, similar to the Bush Administration's Orewellian logic regarding American's position in the world: "You're either with us, or you're with the enemy." Bush put forth a false paradigm of absolute good versus absolute evil.

In the news from CMD
[PR Fix This End Run?] Tiki Barber, a former running back for the New York Giants, has hired the 5W Public Relations agency in New York to try and repair his image after he left his wife, who was eight months pregnant with twins, for a former NBC intern. 5W Public Relations is the third PR agency Barber has hired to try and burnish his image. The couple also has two other sons, ages 7 and 6. In Barber's memoir, "Tiki: My Life in the Game and Beyond," published in 2007, he wrote about the kind of man he wanted to be for his kids, saying "I want to be an honorable man, because that's what I want them both to be. My family is everything to me."

Telecoms Force Customers to Pay for Nothing

Time Warner Cable has figured how to make customers pay more for a "service" that consists of doing absolutely nothing: it doubled its fee to not print customers' names in the phone book. Time Warner now charges $1.99 a month, or almost $24 a year, for an unlisted number. Verizon charges $1.75 a month not to list your name in its phone book, and AT&T charges $1.25 a month not to provide the same service. Why charge a fee every month, when the request is made once, carried out with a few keystrokes, and then is done? Jim Gordon, a spokesman for Time Warner, says "It's a recurring service that you're provided throughout the month." This means Time Warner charges customers for a service that consists of doing nothing, and since they don't do anything month after month, they keep charging you for a "recurring service." Even worse, Time Warner doesn't even print its own phone book. It pays Sprint to compile its customers' names and numbers, and then give them to companies that do print directories. So Time Warner is charging people $1.99 a month not to be in a book they don't even produce. In 2009, a California State Senator introduced legislation to prohibit telecom companies from charging fees for unlisted numbers, arguing that it should not cost customers more to protect their privacy, but the legislator abandoned the bill after phone and cable companies lobbied against it.

Projects for citizen editors

Help Us Keep SourceWatch's Article on BP Up to Date

Information about BP's PR and spin is gushing forth every day, almost as thick and fast as the oil is spewing into the Gulf. With all the information being discovered aboutBP and its corporate (mis)behaviors, we're having a hard time keeping the SourceWatch article about BP up to date with all the news. Have you heard or read something about BP's corporate spin, lobbying, flim-flamming, stonewalling, or other efforts to influence regulatory agencies, legislators or public perception? Record them in SourceWatch's article about the company.

Here's How You Can Help: Please cite authoritative sources for any information you add. If this is your first time editing on SourceWatch, you can register here, and learn more about how to contribute, what SourceWatch is all about, and how to cite references. Hold onto your hat, have fun, and thanks for your help!

If you would like to help in other ways, please take a look at some of our earlier citizen journalism projects here.

Editor's pick of the week

A Doctors' Group on the Fringe

Senate candidate Rand Paul belongs to an organization with the professional-sounding name "Association of American Physicians and Surgeons," a doctors' group that has made headlines lately by organizing protests against the new health insurance reform law. AAPS urges members to appear at these rallies wearing their white coats. But AAPS isn't your average professional group; its members hold views far outside the medical mainstream. AAPS' Statement of Principles maintains that it is "evil" and "immoral" to participate in Medicare and Social Security. The group argues that President Obama uses a covert form of hypnosis called "neurolinguistic programming" to control his audiences and coerce voters. AAPS denies the link between HIV and AIDS and opposes mandatory vaccinations. The group has also fought expanded health care coverage for children. Philip Morris considered the group a friendly third party ally who would to generate press releases favorable to tobacco issues. AAPS has filed a lawsuit to block the mandate in the new health reform law that every citizen purchase health insurance.

Popular Articles over the Past Week

SourceWatch's home page is the top landing page in this website. Our new Total Wall Street Bailout Cost reporting is a top page along with our new financial crisis clearinghouse. Our article on Citizens United is also a top page as is Corporate social responsibility. The article on Existing U.S. Coal_Plants remains a popular page, and the articles on Propaganda techniques and Think tanks are also among SourceWatch's most popular articles.

Spotlight on the BP Disaster

Playing Hide and Seek with Oil

A new report authored by five prominent marine scientists provides a powerful contradiction of the government's recent report that only 25 percent of the oil from the Deepwater Horizon disaster remains in the Gulf of Mexico. On August 4, the government issued a news release that stated, "The vast majority of the oil from the BP oil spill has either evaporated or been burned, skimmed, recovered from the wellhead or dispersed using chemicals -- much of which is in the process of being degraded." The group of scientists who authored the contradictory report estimate that 70 to 79 percent of the oil that gushed into the gulf still remains. Samantha Joye, a professor of marine sciences at the University of Georgia and a co-author of the report, points out that the huge amount of methane that also gushed into the gulf has been completely ignored. Charles Hopkinson, professor of marine sciences in the University of Georgia Franklin College of Arts and Sciences says, “One major misconception is that oil that has dissolved into water is gone and, therefore, harmless ... The oil is still out there, and it will likely take years to completely degrade. We are still far from a complete understanding of what its impacts are.”

What they're saying about SourceWatch

"The folks at the Center for Media and Democracy have done incredible work documenting fake grassroots ("astroturf") groups. Here, they're helping protects the rights of all Americans to exercise their right to vote. They are completely non-partisan. These guys are the real deal." Craig Newmark, Craig's List

"A truly impressive project based on cutting edge web technology." David Korten, author of When Corporations Rule the World and The Great Turning: From Empire to Earth Community.

"The troublemakers at the Center for Media and Democracy, for example, point to dozens of examples of "greenwashing," which they defined as the "unjustified appropriation of environmental virtue by a company, an industry, a government or even a non-government organization to sell a product, a policy" or rehabilitate an image. In the center's view, many enterprises labeled green don't deserve the name.—Jack Shafer, "Green Is the New Yellow: On the excesses of 'green' journalism", Slate, July 6, 2007.

"As a journalist frequently on the receiving end of various PR campaigns, some of them based on disinformation, others front groups for undisclosed interests, [CMD's SourceWatch] is an invaluable resource."—Michael Pollan author of The Botany of Desire

"Thanks for all your help. There's no way I could have done my piece on big PR and global warming without the CMD [Center for Media and Democracy] and your fabulous websites."—Zoe Cormier, journalist, Canada

"The dearth of information on the [U.S.] government [lobbying] disclosure forms about the other business-backed coalitions comes in stark contrast to the data about them culled from media reports, websites, press releases and Internal Revenue Service documents and posted by SourceWatch, a website that tracks advocacy groups." Jeanne Cummings, 'New disclosure reports lack clarity", Politico, April 29, 2008.

Getting Started

Looking for somewhere to start?

To learn how you can edit any article right now, visit SourceWatch:About, SourceWatch:Welcome, newcomers, our Help page, Frequently Asked Questions, or experiment in the sandbox.

If you are unsure where to start, you could expand some of the recently created articles. (Click the recent changes page in the column to your left, and you will see some articles designated as "stubs" that need to be fleshed out). So if you would like to add to some of those you would be most welcome. Or you can use the search box in the upper left column to find other articles to build based on your interests.

Disclaimer: SourceWatch is part of the Center for Media & Democracy—email the publisher of SourceWatch, CMD's Executive Director, Lisa Graves, via lisa AT prwatch.org. You can also contact CMD's Managing Editor, Anne Landman, via anne AT sourcewatch.org.

Antispam note: To avoid attracting spam email robots, email addresses on SourceWatch are written with AT in place of the usual symbol, and we have removed "mail to" links. Replace AT with the correct symbol to get a valid address.

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