Web-based Design

I'm an amateur Web designer and had a blast teaching Web design to five talented graphic design majors last Interterm. The students' major project was to develop a site showcasing their graphic design work. You can see below that they did a great job.

Web Essay (29 June ’06):
Independence Day Ushered in by Attack on Bill of Rights

There's nothing new about conservatives' attacks upon the news media. Since the days of the Civil Rights Movement and the Vietnam War, those with vested interests in preserving the status quo have lashed back at (in the memorable words of Vice President Spiro T. Agnew) the "nattering nabobs of negativity."

In the '60s and '70s, there might actually have been a sliver of truth to the rants about the liberal media. Or, at least, one can understand why those in power might have felt television's fixation on Vietnam casualties and antiwar protests, or on police firehosing and siccing dogs on peaceful Civil Rights marchers, to be a conspiracy against the status quo.

But in ensuing years, the mantra of the "liberal media" has become one of the central tenets of conservative propaganda, a convenient lie repeated so many times that the public no longer questions its truth. It is a lie because it is demonstrably true that far-right conservative voices dominate every news medium. It is convenient because--given the public's unquestioning acceptance of the media as left-wing--conservatives can deflect unfavorable press coverage simply by attacking the messenger's alleged political bias.

As it has in all areas of propaganda, the Bush Administration has masterfully perpetuated and exploited the myth of the liberal media. But the stakes have been raised by the past week's orchestrated attacks against the New York Times for publishing a story about secret governmental tracking of financial transactions (registration required).

This new campaign is part and parcel of the administration's campaign to convince the American public that the Constitution grants the president unlimited powers in the time of war (which is, of course, "endless" as well as pre-emptive).

The new Big Lie is this: That the president's powers in time of war trump every Constitutional check and balance. And this new big lie is being repeated often enough and vigorously enough that--just like the myth of the liberal media--the American public may very soon accept as fact that the press commits treason when it carries out its patriotic responsibility, expected and guaranteed in the First Amendment.

When the American people begin to believe that the First Amendment threatens national security, we will also have jettisoned the most important liberty the Constitution grants the people.

Last December we had to endure countless hypocritical fulminations about Christ being removed from Christmas. (Yet more proof that the media are conservative, not liberal.) Any chance we'll hear or read any similar diatribes about independence being removed from Independence Day? No. It's a sad fact: the media are not liberal.