Charles Foster Johnson
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Charles Foster "Icarus" Johnson (born April 13, 1953) is an American Jazz guitarist, software developer and blogger.[1] He has played on 29 albums. His weblog, Little Green Footballs, is one of the top 50 most popular blogs on the Internet.[2]
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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,[3] 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. Little Green Footballs 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.[4] Johnson was raised Roman Catholic but now considers himself an agnostic.[4]
Johnson is a co-founder of Pajamas Media.
Johnson, and other conservative bloggers, gained attention during the 2004 U.S. presidential election for their role in exposing as forgeries several memos purporting to document irregularities in George W. Bush's National Guard service record. (See Killian documents and Killian documents authenticity issues.) CBS news anchor Dan Rather presented the memos as authentic in a Sept. 8, 2004 report on 60 Minutes Wednesday, two months before the vote. Days after the broadcast, Johnson showed the documents, supposedly typewritten in 1973, could have been created easily on a modern computer using Microsoft Word.[5]
In 2007, Johnson rewrote the Little Green Footballs software to use MySQL and AJAX.
[edit] Political views
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 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 "recommends Michael Crichton’s book State of Fear".[13]
After the Virginia Tech shooting, Johnson indicated that he opposed stricter gun control by posting on his website an episode of Penn & Teller which is strongly critical of any such moves. [14]
[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
- ^ Brendan Bernhard. "The Blogger Who Helped to Dislodge Dan Rather", The New York Sun, February 3, 2005. Retrieved on 2007-07-12.
- ^ Popular Blogs. Technorati.
- ^ John Eidsvoog (June 6, 1991). The Story of CodeHead Software. Retrieved on 2006-10-15.
- ^ a b Gil Ronen. "At Israel's Right", Arutz Sheva Israel National News, April 29, 2004. Retrieved on 2006-10-15.
- ^ Charles Johnson (September 9, 2004). Bush Guard Documents: Forged. Little Green Footballs. Retrieved on 2006-10-15.
- ^ Paul Farhi. "Blogger Takes Aim At News Media and Makes a Direct Hit", The Washington Post, August 9, 2006. Retrieved on 2006-10-15.
- ^ Charles Johnson (January 5, 2002). Anti-idiotarian bloggers. Little Green Footballs. Retrieved on 2006-10-15.
- ^ A search for posts on Little Green Footballs containing the word "moonbat", conducted October 15, 2006, found 686 matches dating back to August 4, 2002
- ^ Charles Johnson (April 16, 2002). Scenes from a Peaceful Religion. Little Green Footballs. Retrieved on 2006-10-15.
- ^ Charles Johnson (June 11, 2002). Peaceful Religion Sweepstakes. Little Green Footballs. Retrieved on 2006-10-15.
- ^ Charles Johnson (August 22, 2002). Religion of Peace. Little Green Footballs. Retrieved on 2006-10-15.
- ^ Charles Johnson (August 8, 2006). MSM Fauxtography Watch. Little Green Footballs. Retrieved on 2006-10-15.
- ^ Charles Johnson (April 4, 2007). The Great Global Warming Swindle. Little Green Footballs. Retrieved on 2007-03-04.
- ^ Charles Johnson (April 21, 2007). Gun Control: Clever or Stupid?. Little Green Footballs. Retrieved on 2007-03-22.
[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 2006-07-05.
