A hoax for our times

The entire West Coast is, of course, obsessed with the power crunch that continues to unfold (no, this isn't another "California Energy" bloggage. Bear with me...). To capitalize on the paranoia, a Portland prankster named Tim Jordan (aka Ervin Kevin, aka Harry Lime) built a fake website announcing plans for a nuclear power plant by Astoria (best known outside Oregon for being the place where Goonies was filmed) and then watched as members of the media fell for it.

KXL news jockey and Channel 12 anchor Lars Larson fell for it the hardest, actually interviewing "Dr. Tim Jordan" about the proposal. The little Daily Astorian broke the news, finally checking the source code of the web page, which has in the header:

"This is a parody. We copied a web page and added our own special touches to fool the media. George Bush is a stooge of big oil and energy companies and the corportate (sic) media are morons to believe this hoax. HARRY LIME IS GOD OF ALL HOAXES."

The Willamette Week didn't fall for it and therefore could gloat at will (next to last item).

There's quite a few great media hoaxes at the Idiosyntactix Culture Jamming website, which I've linked before. My favorite is probably the classic old Swiss Spaghetti Harvest story the BBC did in 1957 for April Fools' Day.

Back to a dull roar

Well, things are beginning to quiet down at the office. We're in between snow storms right now (check the weather magnet on the bottom of the site), so that might help explain why the technicians aren't as busy. Expunging will be done on Saturday, so I don't have to feel guilty about eating something sugary or drinking a beer. I also would like to work a bit on a piece of the story, although Maggie has called the next segment. The license plate graphic as the title is not likely to stay for very long, because she has designed me a Celtic-themed banner that we're working on converting from a Quark doc to a graphic one. It's really cool. Ok, random links.

What to do if "In God We Trust" on our money offends you.

A black author analyzes the state of race relations from an introspective view. Now, this is a tough one for me. I feel as a white man somewhat uncomfortable commenting on the status of racism now. I post this with the caveat that I would desperately love for the major social justice movements (women [wimmin, womyn] and people of color) to increase outreach to "majorities" to include us in constructive discussions of the future of the country; as it is, the historic coalitions between progressive whites and minority communities have become severely strained in the last twenty years. I think this split also explains the appeal of "masculinists" like Warren Farrell, who are misguided but are speaking to a real disaffectation by white males. Ok, I'm sure I've just irritated about half my audience or more for one reason or another, so I'll drop that.

I can't believe they're doing this in Idaho: The zoo there is offering Valentine's Day brunch complete with a slideshow of the mating rituals of the animals. From the Obscure Store.