Charles Foster Johnson
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Charles Foster "Icarus" Johnson (born April 13, 1953) is an American Jazz guitarist who has played on 29 albums. He also runs the weblog Little Green Footballs which is one of the top 50 most popular blogs on the Internet.[1]
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[edit] Biography
Charles Johnson was born in New York and raised in Hawaii. He launched his first career (as a jazz guitarist) in the mid-1970s. Extensive recording credits include at least three albums that went gold: Reach For It by George Duke, School Days by Stanley Clarke, and Live in London by Al Jarreau.
He later co-founded CodeHead Technologies,[2] which marketed productivity and desktop publishing software (mostly hand-coded in assembly language) for the Atari ST computer. In 2001, Johnson founded a web design firm called "Little Green Footballs" with his brother Michael. The Little Green Footballs weblog began as a testbed on the company's website.
Israel National News has referred to Johnson as a "Righteous Gentile" because of his support for Israel.[3]
Johnson is a co-founder of Pajamas Media.
He gained increased public attention for debunking Dan Rather’s forged National Guard letter about George W Bush during the 2004 US presidential campaign. (See Killian documents and Killian documents authenticity issues.) He tried typing the contents of the letter dated "18 August 1973" into Microsoft Word with the default settings and found that the result closely matched the document which CBS claimed had been written with a typewriter in 1973.[4] He then created an animated GIF image alternating between a photocopy of the forged memo and his newly-created version,[5] demonstrating that the two match exactly except for distortions and blots introduced when the forgery was photocopied and faxed.
[edit] Political views
Johnson says he is a former liberal who was deeply affected by the September 11, 2001 attacks and now describes himself (per neoconservative writer Irving Kristol) as "a liberal who got mugged by reality".[citation needed]
According to Johnson, "political correctness has kept a lot of the hard truth from being spread by the mainstream media."[6]
Johnson coined the term "idiotarian"[7], popularized the epithet "moonbat"[8] and promoted the sarcastic use of the phrase "Religion of Peace" to describe Islam.[9][10][11]
He also coined the term "fauxtography"[12] to describe the publishing of manipulated photographs of the 2006 Israel-Lebanon conflict by news services such as Reuters and the Associated Press. (See 2006 Israel-Lebanon conflict photographs controversies and Adnan Hajj photographs controversy.)
Johnson has described the theory of global warming as "the international left’s newest article of blind faith" and a "swindle".[13]
[edit] Religious views
Charles Johnson was raised Roman Catholic but now considers himself an agnostic.[citation needed]
[edit] Discography
- 1976 School Days with Stanley Clarke
- 1977 I'm Fine, How Are You with Airto Moreira
- 1977 Reach for It with George Duke
- 1977 Garden of Love Light with Narada Michael Walden
- 1978 Don't Let Go with George Duke
- 1978 Don't Ask My Neighbors with Raul DeSouza
- 1979 Follow the Rainbow with George Duke
- 1979 Future Street with Pages
- 1980 Nielsen Pearson with Nielsen Pearson
- 1980 Rocks, Pebbles and Sand with Stanley Clarke
- 1981 Pages [1981] with Pages
- 1983 Not the Boy Next Door with Peter Allen
- 1984 In London with Al Jarreau
- 1984 Live in London with Al Jarreau
- 1987 All In the Name of Love with Atlantic Starr
- 1988 Guitar Workshop: Tribute to with Otis Redding
- 1989 One Passion with Michael Paulo
- 1991 Dream On with George Duke
- 1993 Art & Survival with Dianne Reeves
- 1994 L.A. with Hiroshima
- 1995 Piel Ajena with Eduardo Capetillo
- 1996 George Duke Greatest Hits with George Duke
- 1996 Is That the Way to Your Heart with Kazu Matsui
- 1998 A Song a Day
- 2000 When I Hold You in My Heart with Clay Mortensen
- 2000 Rare Collection with Jaco Pastorius
- 2001 Pages [2001] with Pages
- 2003 Punk Jazz: The Jaco Pastorius Anthology with Jaco Pastorius
- 2003 In Between the Heartaches with Phyllis Hyman
[edit] References
- ^ Popular Blogs. Technorati. Retrieved on October 15, 2006.
- ^ John Eidsvoog (1991-06-06). The Story of CodeHead Software. Retrieved on October 15, 2006.
- ^ Gil Ronen. "At Israel's Right", Arutz Sheva Israel National News, 2004-04-29. Retrieved on October 15, 2006.
- ^ Charles Johnson (2004-09-09). Bush Guard Documents: Forged. Little Green Footballs. Retrieved on October 15, 2006.
- ^ Charles Johnson (2004-09-11). One More CBS Document Example. Little Green Footballs. Retrieved on October 15, 2006.
- ^ Paul Farhi. "Blogger Takes Aim At News Media and Makes a Direct Hit", Washington Post, 2006-08-09. Retrieved on October 15, 2006.
- ^ Charles Johnson (2002-01-05). Anti-idiotarian bloggers. Little Green Footballs. Retrieved on October 15, 2006.
- ^ A search for posts on Little Green Footballs containing the word "moonbat", conducted 2006-10-15, found 686 matches dating back to 2002-08-04
- ^ Charles Johnson (2002-04-16). Scenes from a Peaceful Religion. Little Green Footballs. Retrieved on October 15, 2006.
- ^ Charles Johnson (2002-06-11). Peaceful Religion Sweepstakes. Little Green Footballs. Retrieved on October 15, 2006.
- ^ Charles Johnson (2002-08-22). Religion of Peace. Little Green Footballs. Retrieved on October 15, 2006.
- ^ Charles Johnson (2006-08-08). MSM Fauxtography Watch. Little Green Footballs. Retrieved on October 15, 2006.
- ^ Charles Johnson (2007-03-04). The Great Global Warming Swindle. Little Green Footballs. Retrieved on March 4, 2007.
[edit] External links
- ArtistDirect.com - Charles Johnson musical biography
- ArtistDirect.com - Charles Johnson recording credits
- John Hawkins. The Charles Johnson Interview. Right Wing News. Retrieved on July 5, 2006.
- Brendan Bernhard (2005-02-03). The Blogger Who Helped to Dislodge Dan Rather. New York Sun.
- At Israel's Right Profile and interview of Jonhson, by B'Sheva
- Charles Johnson's links on the web
