i want to start out by noting the third estate sunday review's "Editorial: You say you're doing a Blog Report." as readers here know, there was no thursday post as a result of blogger. but you didn't hear about that from the blog reporters at cjr daily or slate. this editorial asks how you can call yourself a blog reporter and miss one of the biggest stories of last week?
for those of you who e-mailed about posts yesterday, as most of you know, on saturdays, betty, c.i. and i help out the gang at the third estate sunday review in any way we can.
and while we're talking about blog betty, who is just wonderful and amazingly funny, let's note that she has a new post up today. the premise of the column is that thomas friedman opens the paper to learn that the op-ed schedule has been changed and his column no longer runs on sunday but on friday instead. (i belive he has a column running on wednesdays.)
so high tail it on over to blog betty and read 'My husband Thomas Friedman says "The world is going to hell in an Enstrom's Gift Basket."' trust me, you will laugh.
i'll also steer you over to c.i. at the common ills for a number of things.
1st, note "Raymond Bonner's "Australia Uneasy about U.S. Detainee Case" is buried in this morning's New York Times (seek it out)" from today.
i'll quote from it (including the shout out to me!):
"Cardinals Hint At the Profile Of a New Pope" may be on the front page, but "hint" or not, it's not really news. It's speculation. And it will be of interest to some. (Though I think the death pageant has lost its luster at last.) But it's not front page news. (The next Pope, according to NPR, will be announced the Monday after next. Check my math, but that's eight days from now. Hopefully, we're not expected to suffer through public relations releases passing themselves off as news for the entire time, as Rebecca's noted, but who knows?)
"Charles and Camilla, Married at Last, and With Hardly a Hitch" graces the front page, as opposed to the social register. I'm holding my tongue out of respect for our UK community members (some of whom we'll wish I'd let it rip -- Camilla and Charles aren't that popular with out members). But Bonner's story isn't. Bonner's story is on A14. Maybe had one of the the detainees posed for photos wearing a floppy hat like Camilla or a dress whose bottom appeared a slight tribute to Wilma Flinstone, Bonner could have graced the front page.
But regardless of where the New York Timid places Bonner's story today, it is news. They can bury it, but it's still news. Who knows, maybe they'll pull Bonner from his beat if the Bully Boy makes the same sort of noises the Reagan administration did in the eighties?
2nd, note "Let's talk New York Times . . ." building on a number of things (including my entry here friday), c.i. notes:
Ron (Why Are We Back In Iraq?) e-mailed me a story from Editor & Publisher. (Thank you, Ron.)
Joe Strupp's "Fired 'NYT' Foreign Correspondent Angrily DeniesCharges" doesn't paint a picture of a responsible press.
Here's another part:
But I do know that having embarrassed themselves with the Green Zone reporting repeatedly (which is getting as bad as Judith Miller's pre-invasion reporting), the last thing the Times needs is another scandal. But they have it now by firing someone they allege gossipped.
Having pushed the "values debate" (Adam Nagourney) over and over until January rolled around when suddenly they (Adam Nagourney) scratched their heads and seemed to wonder how that false narrative got started (one Frank Rich said at the time was false), maybe they shouldn't fire someone they allege squealed on extra-marital going ons in the Green Zone?
Hey, the Times pushed that "values" nonsense like crazy. They pushed the "red" state/"blue" state narrative like crazy. (Whether they realized it or not, it was in their own interests to do so.
The Times is centerists and the centerists Dems were trying to use that nonsense -- and continue to try to use it -- to push the party to the right.) Having done their part (and then some) to force the "values" debate, if Sachs squealed (if, we're giving her the benefit of the doubt) on affairs (I have no idea if the charges are true) then wouldn't that be her "value" responsibility? Didn't we have a preacher, not all that long ago, get away with squealing on a woman who was having an affair? She spoke to the clergy member in privacy but he felt his duty to the bounds of marriage was to great to remain silent. (Or that's what he said anyway.)
So by the same token, having pushed the "values" narrative, maybe the Times is in no position to fire anyone they think might have passed on extra-marital rumors or news?
But they did that. And now they look silly. And this will be talked about and talked about. (Hey, anything to take the focus of Judith Miller, I guess.) If the rumors were false, then Burns & Filkins should be able to straighten their own personal lives out without anyone being fired.
If they were true, the Times operates under some "what happens in the Green Zone, stays in the Green Zone" policy that's unwritten but long in play at the Grey Lady.Sachs was fired for allegedy outing alleged private behaviors of Dexter Filkins and John F. Burns.
Anyone else raising an eye brow?Anyone else thinking, "But Daniel Okrent outed a private citizen, named him, gave his city and state, over his objection. Over a private e-mail to a reporter for the Times. It wasn't meant for publication, though Okrent quoted from this private correspondence without permission which is legally questionable since he identified the author, and he put the paper of record in a strange position to say the least.
According to Randy Cohen, Okrent was "censured" over that. The paper never saw fit to inform the readers of that. But, if Cohen was correct, he wasn't fired over it. Guess that tells you whom the Times values and whom it doesn't.
Okrent's stepping down (at the pre-arranged end of his tenure) and some of his peers rush up to toss a halo on him and speak of all the great things he did as the public editor, as the readers' advocate. They ignore that he outed a reader, that he behaved in a manner that not only appeared petty but also appeared to place himself and the paper on questionable legal grounds.
Now we learn that Sachs is fired for allegedly outing two alleged cheaters.
If Filkins and Burns are humiliated (or their spouses), blame the Times and not Sachs. If she were guilty (if), the Times botched it (as usual) and thereby allowed the news to travel far beyond anything that whomever wrote the letters and e-mails did.
The New York Times just can't seem to get its act together these days. There are a lot of people putting things into print about the paper. There's the rumor that Judith Miller forced Arthur Ochs Sulzberger Jr.'s hand. (E-mails to this site state his hand wasn't forced. He was backing Miller from day one. Due to the long nature of his and Miller's relationship, I'm inclined to believe those e-mails.)
In the past year, we've seen a lot of journalists make news. Jane Mayer and Seymour Hersh of The New Yorker, for instance. But they made news on the basis of their reporting. More and more, the Times is making news not for anything in the paper but for what's going on behind the scenes. That ought to worry the paper because image is what has always kept it afloat.
that was from late friday. i love it when c.i. rips into the new york timid!
the third thing from the common ills that i'll note is 'Mike Papantonio: "The problem is when we turn on the TV and we think John Stossel or Cokie Roberts or Brit Hume or Tim Russert are on our side."' this is about a hard hitting segment on ring of fire and it's worth reading.
lastly, bronwyn e-mails that she thought that the attention c.i. and i both gave to the patriot act was a bit much and 'just didn't get it.' but then, bronwyn writes, she read the editorial in this morning's new york times and now gets the point. bronwyn, glad to have you on board. my guess on why you didn't get it, you wrote 'none of the other blogs are writing about it.' well that's interesting and i guess it's not an issue to them. i'd love it if you'd written that some blogger wrote about it and convinced you. or that you were listening to the laura flanders show right now, like i am, and were informed there. but sometimes even the new york times gets it right. (i haven't read the editorial. i have finished the style section and plan to look at the magazine next.) so if the times wrote a strong editorial, more power to them. but if you're visiting 'practically every site' (i find that hard to believe but maybe you live in front of your computer) and you weren't hearing about the patriot act at other sites, you might want to ask yourself what you did hear about? you mention that i didn't 'cover the pope really until friday.'
bronwyn, did the world need more chatter about the pope?
4/10/2005
4/08/2005
note of thanks to every 1 who e-mailed and an answer to the big question
will i do a mirror site?
that's a question that came up in a lot of e-mails today as people found out from c.i. over at the common ills that there was a problem with blogger.
i don't know the answer to that right now.
i'm sorry for those who missed out on a post yesterday or before my post for today went up.
and you should know that betty feels awful that she wasn't able to get something up last night at thomas friedman is a great man. it really depressed her. this has happened before in other ways so i'm used to it.
i spent 2 hours trying to post and then just said enough. i had other things to do then beat my head against the wall because i couldn't post.
if it continues, i may attempt a mirror site. right now, i'll probably be letting c.i. blaze the trail on that. i'll be able to find out if there are any problems and whether it works without actually investing the time.
i do think that the uk computer gurus did an amazing job on the mirror site. it's really wonderful the way it looks, the colors, and everything.
and it was put together so quickly so it must be pretty easy.
but for now i'll just blog here and if the problem returns, i'll give some thought to it.
i am touched that so many of you wrote to make sure i was okay. i had no idea that so many of you were visiting this site. it's nice to know that you enjoy it and hopefully we'll have no more 'brown outs' via blogger.
sexandpoliticsandscreeds@yahoo.com is my address and i'll put that in because a lot of you said today that you would hve written sooner if you'd been able to find the address.
i'm sorry if it put any 1 out not having a post last night but i really do appreciate all the e-mails that came in.
that's a question that came up in a lot of e-mails today as people found out from c.i. over at the common ills that there was a problem with blogger.
i don't know the answer to that right now.
i'm sorry for those who missed out on a post yesterday or before my post for today went up.
and you should know that betty feels awful that she wasn't able to get something up last night at thomas friedman is a great man. it really depressed her. this has happened before in other ways so i'm used to it.
i spent 2 hours trying to post and then just said enough. i had other things to do then beat my head against the wall because i couldn't post.
if it continues, i may attempt a mirror site. right now, i'll probably be letting c.i. blaze the trail on that. i'll be able to find out if there are any problems and whether it works without actually investing the time.
i do think that the uk computer gurus did an amazing job on the mirror site. it's really wonderful the way it looks, the colors, and everything.
and it was put together so quickly so it must be pretty easy.
but for now i'll just blog here and if the problem returns, i'll give some thought to it.
i am touched that so many of you wrote to make sure i was okay. i had no idea that so many of you were visiting this site. it's nice to know that you enjoy it and hopefully we'll have no more 'brown outs' via blogger.
sexandpoliticsandscreeds@yahoo.com is my address and i'll put that in because a lot of you said today that you would hve written sooner if you'd been able to find the address.
i'm sorry if it put any 1 out not having a post last night but i really do appreciate all the e-mails that came in.
lost in pope-arama, the new york times chooses public relations over journalism
Ever since the FBI admitted it wrongly arrested him in connection with the Madrid train bombings, Brandon Mayfield has contended the government used the Patriot Act to search his home and gather personal information to portray him as a Muslim militant.
The Justice Department denied Mayfield's claims -- until Tuesday.
that's news and it's from 'Gonzales Admits Patriot Act Used in Mayfield Case by rukmini callimachi of the associated press. c.i. of the common ills e-mailed that to me yesterday.
(and i tried to post yesterday but as we all know blogger was being a total pain in the ass - and still is. this is my second attempt tonight on this post.)
but you didn't hear about that, did you?
what you got was what you got all week (and most of last week) which was 'drums keep pounding rhythm to the brain/ la de da di de/la de da di da/ and the pope goes on/ yes, the pope goes on.' possibly, since the pope was buried this morning, the news media might be able to do something now other than public relations?
that's what you've gotten day after day.
i used to work in public relations. back then we prayed for a day like this week (just a day!). some family man was leaving his wife and kids for his pregnant mistress and a day like any of the past 9 or 10 came along, we'd be screaming, 'we're putting it out now! no 1 will even notice it!'
that's what we did because that was our business, damage control and selling you products.
but that's not what the news media is supposed to be doing.
some of you may be saying 'rebecca, this was news!'
where? from where i stand, it was public relations pure and simple.
you saw 1 travelogue after another.
c.i. did a great post today about how this wasn't news. it's up at the common ills and up at the new mirror site. you can find the actual entry here and here.
i'm going to assume most of you know where i'm headed but for those who don't, let me give background that before i got married (i'm divorced now) i made my money via public relations.
(i don't have to work now -- generous property settlement.)
but i know p.r. i was trained it, i made a living at it.
and this wasn't news. this was done because it was cheap to do and because it risked offending very few people.
let's deal with the economic factor. some 1's saying 'but becky, they had to go over to rome!'
yes and once they got there they had to point and shoot. that was it.
there was no chasing down a lead.
they put bystanders on camera.
and the 'spokespeople,' 'becky, what about the officials from the church!'
they didn't have to find those people. the catholic church knows the importance of good p.r.
that's why they endorse horror movies that are from 'family movies' as long as the film presents the solution that the only 1 who can save you is a priest. as long as the message is 'take that methodists!' or whatever demonition, they don't condemn a film. they make people available to talk about the film. they may even provide the film with technical advisors.
the catholic church knows the importance of p.r. (they tried to get ahead of the priest scandals but failed to grasp there wasn't a 'feel good' spin to that.)
'hello, my name is lana monroe and i'm with the canton weekly out of canton, ohio. we have a readership of 75.'
even something that small will be provided with a spokesperson.
the catholic church understands p.r. and they understand a p.r. bonaza which is what this has been for them. a story 1/4 as domination as this serves to get wayward catholics back into the pews and dollars back into the plate. they'll provide you with some 1, any 1, to speak with. this is free advertising for them.
i'm not slamming them for that. if they were my client, i would tell them to do exactly what they're doing. but you don't usually see the press fall over themselves so easily to become a partner in your p.r. campaign.
you've seen that with pope-arama. (credit for that goes to danny schechter's news dissector where i saw the phrase and 'the pope goes on' goes to common ills community member dallas.)
there is no digging for sources or attempting to find a hard news angle. it's all pretty visuals with the occassional 'official voice' tossed in between some quirky people (we love to play up the quirks in foreigners in our domestic media). the story writes itself, it films itself, it announces itself. this isn't reporting. it's p.r.
and while the pope-arama went on, you missed out on some serious stories.
'but becky,' you say, 'the new york times was caught up in the pope-arama like every 1 else.'
that doesn't wash.
they ran 2 stories on torture czar alberto gonzales. on tuesday he was questioned by the senate. on wednesday eric lichtblau turned in his article on that. but he didn't tell you about brandon mayfield. he took dictation but seemed to put his pen down when he came across some thing that was actually news, that actually mattered.
as if it wasn't bad enough that lichtblau ignored it on wednesday, he returned to the same topic on thursday to explain to us that 'hey alberto's pretty groovy.' that piece of printed drool made wednesday's story look better but even it could turn wednesday's story into news.
how does the new york times miss this story? how does eric lichtblau? he was assigned to cover gonzales's appearence before the senate.
from c.i.'s entry at the common ills wednesday:
Dozens of e-mails came in wanting Eric Lichtblau's "Antiterrorism Law Defended as Hearings Start" highlighted. So we're giving this New York Times story it's own entry.
Mr. Gonzales's forceful defense of the expanded antiterrorism powers granted under the USA Patriot Act came at the start of what is expected to be months of hearings in both the Senate and the House. Sixteen provisions in the law are to expire by year's end, and a decision over whether to extend them, and whether the government's expanded powers have eroded civil liberties, is shaping up as one of the biggest legislative battles in the current Congress.
You'll note that "Brand New Me" Alberto Gonzales parrots J-Ass (John Ashcroft) in claiming that the library provision is of "no interest" to the Justice Dept. And you'll note that because Lichtblau works that into his article. Haven't we been down this road before?
Question, is Lichtblau aware of a Washington Post article entitled " Patriot Act Provision Invoked, Memo Says FBI Request Came Weeks After Ashcroft Denied Using Controversial Part of Law?"
From that June 18, 2004 article by Amy Goldstein:
The FBI asked the Justice Department last fall to seek permission from a secret federal court to use the most controversial provision of the USA Patriot Act, four weeks after Attorney General John D. Ashcroft said that part of the law had never been used, according to government documents disclosed this week.
A one-paragraph memo -- saying the FBI wanted to use the part of the law that allows investigators in terrorism and espionage cases easier access to people's business and library records -- was in a stack of documents the government has released under court order, as debate persists over whether use of the anti-terrorism law violates civil liberties.
Read Goldstein's article. You'll find out that J-Ass selectively declassified a memo to make it look as though the library provision had never been used. Then when the court ordered the release of documents, we find out that the declassified memo J-Ass's remarks were neither illumating nor forthcoming.
Curiously, Dan Eggen's article in today's Washington Post also overlooks Goldstein's previous reporting. From "Congress Urged to Renew Patriot Act: Minor Changes Would Address Concerns, Gonzales and Mueller Tell Senate Panel:
"Authorities have obtained information under the controversial business records provision 35 times, including driver's license records, credit card records, Internet subscriber records and hotel and apartment records, officials said. Gonzales said the provision has not been used to obtain records from medical providers, gun shops, bookstores or libraries, although he said the administration would oppose any attempt to exempt such categories.
"The department has no interest in rummaging through the library records or the medical records of Americans," Gonzales testified. "We do have an interest, however, in records that may help us capture terrorists. And there may be an occasion where having the tools . . . to access this kind of information may be very helpful."
No interest? What of Goldstein's reporting? Apparently that's down the memory hole. (Thanks to community member professional journalist for the e-mail heads up alerting me to Goldstein's article which I'd never read before p.j. steered me to it.)
The Times is a competitor of the Washington Post's. Why Eggen, writing for the Post, is unaware of Goldstein's reporting is another issue.
the 'all the news that's fit to print' new york times could have had a story, a real story. they didn't bother. unless they want to change the slogan to 'all the p.r. that's fit to spin,' they need to take a hard look at their actions this week. there is news and there is p.r. and they might be able to argue with me of how news worthy a news story was, but i was trained in public relations and i know p.r. when i see it. that's basically what we got, p.r., in this week's new york times.
and they still haven't told readers that the government has lied repeatedly. that the government did use a sneak & peak aspect of the patriot act to search brandon mayfield's home.
and that they lied when they repeatedly stated that they hadn't done that.
they did do it. and gonzales admitted it or bragged about it tuesday on the senate floor. why didn't the new york times cover that?
The Justice Department denied Mayfield's claims -- until Tuesday.
that's news and it's from 'Gonzales Admits Patriot Act Used in Mayfield Case by rukmini callimachi of the associated press. c.i. of the common ills e-mailed that to me yesterday.
(and i tried to post yesterday but as we all know blogger was being a total pain in the ass - and still is. this is my second attempt tonight on this post.)
but you didn't hear about that, did you?
what you got was what you got all week (and most of last week) which was 'drums keep pounding rhythm to the brain/ la de da di de/la de da di da/ and the pope goes on/ yes, the pope goes on.' possibly, since the pope was buried this morning, the news media might be able to do something now other than public relations?
that's what you've gotten day after day.
i used to work in public relations. back then we prayed for a day like this week (just a day!). some family man was leaving his wife and kids for his pregnant mistress and a day like any of the past 9 or 10 came along, we'd be screaming, 'we're putting it out now! no 1 will even notice it!'
that's what we did because that was our business, damage control and selling you products.
but that's not what the news media is supposed to be doing.
some of you may be saying 'rebecca, this was news!'
where? from where i stand, it was public relations pure and simple.
you saw 1 travelogue after another.
c.i. did a great post today about how this wasn't news. it's up at the common ills and up at the new mirror site. you can find the actual entry here and here.
i'm going to assume most of you know where i'm headed but for those who don't, let me give background that before i got married (i'm divorced now) i made my money via public relations.
(i don't have to work now -- generous property settlement.)
but i know p.r. i was trained it, i made a living at it.
and this wasn't news. this was done because it was cheap to do and because it risked offending very few people.
let's deal with the economic factor. some 1's saying 'but becky, they had to go over to rome!'
yes and once they got there they had to point and shoot. that was it.
there was no chasing down a lead.
they put bystanders on camera.
and the 'spokespeople,' 'becky, what about the officials from the church!'
they didn't have to find those people. the catholic church knows the importance of good p.r.
that's why they endorse horror movies that are from 'family movies' as long as the film presents the solution that the only 1 who can save you is a priest. as long as the message is 'take that methodists!' or whatever demonition, they don't condemn a film. they make people available to talk about the film. they may even provide the film with technical advisors.
the catholic church knows the importance of p.r. (they tried to get ahead of the priest scandals but failed to grasp there wasn't a 'feel good' spin to that.)
'hello, my name is lana monroe and i'm with the canton weekly out of canton, ohio. we have a readership of 75.'
even something that small will be provided with a spokesperson.
the catholic church understands p.r. and they understand a p.r. bonaza which is what this has been for them. a story 1/4 as domination as this serves to get wayward catholics back into the pews and dollars back into the plate. they'll provide you with some 1, any 1, to speak with. this is free advertising for them.
i'm not slamming them for that. if they were my client, i would tell them to do exactly what they're doing. but you don't usually see the press fall over themselves so easily to become a partner in your p.r. campaign.
you've seen that with pope-arama. (credit for that goes to danny schechter's news dissector where i saw the phrase and 'the pope goes on' goes to common ills community member dallas.)
there is no digging for sources or attempting to find a hard news angle. it's all pretty visuals with the occassional 'official voice' tossed in between some quirky people (we love to play up the quirks in foreigners in our domestic media). the story writes itself, it films itself, it announces itself. this isn't reporting. it's p.r.
and while the pope-arama went on, you missed out on some serious stories.
'but becky,' you say, 'the new york times was caught up in the pope-arama like every 1 else.'
that doesn't wash.
they ran 2 stories on torture czar alberto gonzales. on tuesday he was questioned by the senate. on wednesday eric lichtblau turned in his article on that. but he didn't tell you about brandon mayfield. he took dictation but seemed to put his pen down when he came across some thing that was actually news, that actually mattered.
as if it wasn't bad enough that lichtblau ignored it on wednesday, he returned to the same topic on thursday to explain to us that 'hey alberto's pretty groovy.' that piece of printed drool made wednesday's story look better but even it could turn wednesday's story into news.
how does the new york times miss this story? how does eric lichtblau? he was assigned to cover gonzales's appearence before the senate.
from c.i.'s entry at the common ills wednesday:
Dozens of e-mails came in wanting Eric Lichtblau's "Antiterrorism Law Defended as Hearings Start" highlighted. So we're giving this New York Times story it's own entry.
Mr. Gonzales's forceful defense of the expanded antiterrorism powers granted under the USA Patriot Act came at the start of what is expected to be months of hearings in both the Senate and the House. Sixteen provisions in the law are to expire by year's end, and a decision over whether to extend them, and whether the government's expanded powers have eroded civil liberties, is shaping up as one of the biggest legislative battles in the current Congress.
You'll note that "Brand New Me" Alberto Gonzales parrots J-Ass (John Ashcroft) in claiming that the library provision is of "no interest" to the Justice Dept. And you'll note that because Lichtblau works that into his article. Haven't we been down this road before?
Question, is Lichtblau aware of a Washington Post article entitled " Patriot Act Provision Invoked, Memo Says FBI Request Came Weeks After Ashcroft Denied Using Controversial Part of Law?"
From that June 18, 2004 article by Amy Goldstein:
The FBI asked the Justice Department last fall to seek permission from a secret federal court to use the most controversial provision of the USA Patriot Act, four weeks after Attorney General John D. Ashcroft said that part of the law had never been used, according to government documents disclosed this week.
A one-paragraph memo -- saying the FBI wanted to use the part of the law that allows investigators in terrorism and espionage cases easier access to people's business and library records -- was in a stack of documents the government has released under court order, as debate persists over whether use of the anti-terrorism law violates civil liberties.
Read Goldstein's article. You'll find out that J-Ass selectively declassified a memo to make it look as though the library provision had never been used. Then when the court ordered the release of documents, we find out that the declassified memo J-Ass's remarks were neither illumating nor forthcoming.
Curiously, Dan Eggen's article in today's Washington Post also overlooks Goldstein's previous reporting. From "Congress Urged to Renew Patriot Act: Minor Changes Would Address Concerns, Gonzales and Mueller Tell Senate Panel:
"Authorities have obtained information under the controversial business records provision 35 times, including driver's license records, credit card records, Internet subscriber records and hotel and apartment records, officials said. Gonzales said the provision has not been used to obtain records from medical providers, gun shops, bookstores or libraries, although he said the administration would oppose any attempt to exempt such categories.
"The department has no interest in rummaging through the library records or the medical records of Americans," Gonzales testified. "We do have an interest, however, in records that may help us capture terrorists. And there may be an occasion where having the tools . . . to access this kind of information may be very helpful."
No interest? What of Goldstein's reporting? Apparently that's down the memory hole. (Thanks to community member professional journalist for the e-mail heads up alerting me to Goldstein's article which I'd never read before p.j. steered me to it.)
The Times is a competitor of the Washington Post's. Why Eggen, writing for the Post, is unaware of Goldstein's reporting is another issue.
the 'all the news that's fit to print' new york times could have had a story, a real story. they didn't bother. unless they want to change the slogan to 'all the p.r. that's fit to spin,' they need to take a hard look at their actions this week. there is news and there is p.r. and they might be able to argue with me of how news worthy a news story was, but i was trained in public relations and i know p.r. when i see it. that's basically what we got, p.r., in this week's new york times.
and they still haven't told readers that the government has lied repeatedly. that the government did use a sneak & peak aspect of the patriot act to search brandon mayfield's home.
and that they lied when they repeatedly stated that they hadn't done that.
they did do it. and gonzales admitted it or bragged about it tuesday on the senate floor. why didn't the new york times cover that?
4/06/2005
the ugly: patriot act & the beautiful: jude and c.i.& the irritating bigbadbrianlousyreader
let's start by noting something c.i. sent me. jude of iddybud has written a very nice post on peter jennings and his illness:
I am very sorry to hear that Peter Jennings has lung cancer. I sensed that he was feeling very ill last Friday as he delivered the evening news and my heart goes out to him and his family. My own mother has been struggling with cancer for the past two years and I know the toll it takes upon the patient and caring supporters around him or her. In the case of serious illness, even as we take mental count of our losses, it is also a time to fully realize all the blessings we have in this life and to appreciate what it means to be fully alive, despite hardships. Times of life transition can be portals to deeper connections with our own inner wisdom and with those we love. My prayers are with Peter and his family.
as readers here know, i've really grown fond of jennings and started watching world news tonight after human & journalist imposter brian williams took over nightly news.
jude sums up exactly what world news tonight viewers (and hopefully others as well) are feeling.
thanks to c.i. who found it and e-mailed it to me knowing that i was frazzled after yesterday's house parties and probably would be after today's.
i got some e-mails about c.i.'s post monday. i agree it was a strong post and needed to be said.
but 1 person named bigbadbrian e-mailed me about the 'undisclosed conflict of interest' in c.i. handing me the scoop on the dlc and on unfiltered.
first off, the bigbadbrian needs to add 'lousyreader' to his name. this was not something we kept hidden. regarding the dlc thing, c.i. passed that off to me and i posted on it and as soon as i did, c.i. mentioned it over at common ills noting that it was passed off to me and why. (c.i. had a friend in the know and didn't want to risk quoting the friend and revealing something, a phrase or word, that would clue any 1 in to the source's identity.) that wasn't a conflict of interest. it was noted here and it was noted at the common ills. (this was covered as well but to repeat, c.i. summarized the friend, i summarized c.i. and we were two steps removed from the source's actual words so the source should have been protected.)
as for unfiltered, bigbradbrianlousyreader doesn't read too well. c.i. was not my only source. i do have a few contacts thanks to my former job (p.r. - which is why i found the way it was handled so appalling - it was a p.r. nightmare on top of being so ugly and no 1 involved seemed to realize that you do not go into silence mode in a nightmare).
c.i. noted it over at the common ills and i noted it here. and again, we both noted that c.i. was not the only source. c.i. was the 1 who broke the news to me. the thursday before the non-announcement was made on friday. that's when i started working old contacts. if you know the common ills, you know c.i. avoids the sensationalism and does 'in fairness' but the other sources didn't do that.
but that was noted here and it was noted at the common ills.
c.i. had an inside source and, as c.i. repeatedly says, 'the common ills is not a breaking news site.'
but bigbadbradlousyreader, if c.i. hadn't disclosed the dlc or unfiltered and i hadn't, guess what?
that's not a conflict of interest. you are allowed to protect your sources.
i think that besides working on reading more closely, you might want to work on definitions.
instead we were upfront it because c.i. wanted it that way. and the thanks is some dope named bigbadbrad wants to say 'undisclosed conflict of interest!'
my other sources on that story spoke to me with the understanding that they would remain confidential (and they will). that's not a conflict of interest.
thanks for playing though. sadly, no parting gifts for you.
c.i. also raised an issue last night about ___ and ____'s failure to address skewed reporting on npr. (yes, i know who ___ is.) i couldn't agree with that post more. if you haven't read it, i suggest you do.
if some 1 is making it their role/job to inform you of what the media is getting wrong, that includes npr. and i agree that when you have a staff and you have people e-mailing you about npr and including links to the npr stories that you can use to listen to the story online, there's no excuse not to be addressing npr on a regular basis.
failing to do so sends the impression that npr is not spinning, that it's solid information.
npr is already painted as 'liberal' by the right wingers. it's not liberal. (i'd love it if it were, but it's not.)
it has millions of listeners and a huge reach. the failure to address spinning or distortions when they are broadcast on npr is a huge 1.
in the post, c.i. included a link to 'when npr fails you, who you gonna call? not the ombudsman.'
i've noted that 1 before here. but i'll note it again.
with mere weeks to go before the election, juan williams angered listeners with his 'analysis' of john kerry's remarks. npr had to address it because listeners were outraged.
so they brought on robert kagan and listed the 'peace' organization he belonged to before he spoke. it was hilarious as kagan pretended to really 'hope' that he was misunderstanding kerry.
marvelous performance.
why performance?
as c.i. tells you in that post, but npr didn't, robert kagan was married to a woman working for dick cheney.
juan williams's 'analysis' of kerry's remarks upset listeners who felt it was lacking. to clarify, they bring on robert kagan.
weeks before the election, they allow kagan to weigh in on kerry.
without telling you that his wife works for dick cheney.
that, bigbadbradlousyreader, is a conflict of interest.
and it's a damn shame that if you didn't read the common ills (or buzzflash who linked to the story) you didn't hear about it. you still haven't heard about it.
why is that?
why is npr given such a fucking pass?
juan williams distorted john kerry's remarks and pissed off listeners. npr 'corrects' that by bringing on robert kagan who distorts it as well (in a wonderful acting bit of pauses and i-hope-i'm-wrongs). and this clarification, this correction is being done by someone married to victoria nuland who works for dick cheney.
and no listener was told that. (nor any reader of the npr ombudsman's online column -- ombudsman took a pass as well.)
you want to tell me that back in october john kerry supporters had no right to be told what npr had just done?
where were the big brave truth tellers then?
that's story has still only been told at the common ills.
(and you've got links in c.i.'s post to the new york press, christian science monitor and alternet on the marriage and nuland's employment so this wasn't a marriage the press had never covered.)
this was a huge of conflict of interest. a man married to a woman who works for dick cheney, who's running for vice-president, who therefore works for the administration is allowed to go on npr and weigh in on the opponent. that's bad.
not telling listeners about it is beyond bad.
and why the net wasn't alive with this story then or since is a question you might be better off putting to those who knew about it. and ____ knew about it. the ombudsman at npr knew about it. both chose to ignore it.
as for why the blog world never dealt with the story, i'll assume they missed it. but nothing's stopping them from writing about it now.
it's an important story and it goes to problems with the press. you'd think people would be interested in it. you'd think bloggers would want their readers to know all about it. third estate sunday review has noted it. i've noted it.
i don't know why others don't.
i do know that npr gets away with this sort of shit because they are not called on it.
there seem to be two sets of standards: (1) npr and (2) the rest of the media.
if you're going to take a pass on npr then maybe you should note that on your site?
and all the people talking about how it was a 'nicer' election in 2004 than in 2000 might want to grow up a little and realize that there are millions of stories like the robert kagan 1 that they didn't catch and they didn't pay attention to.
that's why i read the common ills and am a member of the common ills community. if you're the mainstream media, you're not above criticism. just because the right thinks npr is 'liberal' doesn't grant them a pass. because the right wing has put that perception out there, it's all the more important to hold them accountable.
i think if you run the two posts together, you've got a very distrubing portrait of some problems with the blog world. and i think we need to be looking at that.
i also think that bloggers on the left who quote and praise the 'bull moose' need to be held accountable for that. but i'll go into that another time.
wally is my hero. he stood up tuesday in his class and gave a speech on the patriot act. my question for other readers is what are you doing?
sherry's calling her Congress people. lola's e-mailing. a number of you are talking about the issue in your circle and getting the word out.
pope this, pope that. tom delay, tom delay, john corny out of texas, john corny out of texas.
who's telling you about the patriot act right now?
that's an important issue and 1 that effects you if you live in the united states. it may not be sexy. it may not allow for funnies. but it does matter. and we can't count on the mainstream media to get the word out.
democracy now is covering it. thank god for democracy now. today you got to hear senator dick durbin's remarks on the patriot act on democracy now. did you catch those on good morning america? did you get to hear him on nightly news?
here's an excerpt from democracy now's report today on senator richard durbin's remarks
in the senate yesterday:
The point I would like to make is this: If the goal here was, as you say, to enhance federal government sharing intelligence, we could have stayed away from the PATRIOT Act altogether and really focused on the agencies working with one another and sharing information so that the Phoenix memo wouldn't be buried in the depths of the FBI, and so that the CIA and all of the other agencies would communicate. So, before we go to challenge in any respect the Bill of Rights, I think we had a lot of homework to do when it came to the management of information at the federal government. Maybe this new intelligence reform will move us in a more positive direction.
The second thing I’d like you to address, if you would consider, is the Section 215. Section 215, which has caused great pain for people in many communities, such as the American Library Association, not historically a politically active group, has become very active, because they believe the PATRIOT Act went too far. They believe, for example, if an FBI field office believed that an unidentified terrorist checked out a book entitled, "How to Build a Dirty Bomb," from the Chicago Public Library, that Section 215 gives the government the authority to search the library records of hundreds of ordinary citizens in an attempt to identify the terrorist, catching in this net and sweeping in innocent people who have checked out books in the library never knowing that they were to be swept up in the potential of finding a terrorist. Similarly, if an FBI field office came up with information that the wife of a suspected terrorist had an abortion, and therefore, they would go out, they would set out through Section 215 to search the records of a hospital or clinic for all the women who had received an abortion whether or not they might have been associated with any terrorist activities. Section 215 allows all of that information to be gathered in secret through the FISA court and many innocent people to have their privacy compromised in the process.
I am very sorry to hear that Peter Jennings has lung cancer. I sensed that he was feeling very ill last Friday as he delivered the evening news and my heart goes out to him and his family. My own mother has been struggling with cancer for the past two years and I know the toll it takes upon the patient and caring supporters around him or her. In the case of serious illness, even as we take mental count of our losses, it is also a time to fully realize all the blessings we have in this life and to appreciate what it means to be fully alive, despite hardships. Times of life transition can be portals to deeper connections with our own inner wisdom and with those we love. My prayers are with Peter and his family.
as readers here know, i've really grown fond of jennings and started watching world news tonight after human & journalist imposter brian williams took over nightly news.
jude sums up exactly what world news tonight viewers (and hopefully others as well) are feeling.
thanks to c.i. who found it and e-mailed it to me knowing that i was frazzled after yesterday's house parties and probably would be after today's.
i got some e-mails about c.i.'s post monday. i agree it was a strong post and needed to be said.
but 1 person named bigbadbrian e-mailed me about the 'undisclosed conflict of interest' in c.i. handing me the scoop on the dlc and on unfiltered.
first off, the bigbadbrian needs to add 'lousyreader' to his name. this was not something we kept hidden. regarding the dlc thing, c.i. passed that off to me and i posted on it and as soon as i did, c.i. mentioned it over at common ills noting that it was passed off to me and why. (c.i. had a friend in the know and didn't want to risk quoting the friend and revealing something, a phrase or word, that would clue any 1 in to the source's identity.) that wasn't a conflict of interest. it was noted here and it was noted at the common ills. (this was covered as well but to repeat, c.i. summarized the friend, i summarized c.i. and we were two steps removed from the source's actual words so the source should have been protected.)
as for unfiltered, bigbradbrianlousyreader doesn't read too well. c.i. was not my only source. i do have a few contacts thanks to my former job (p.r. - which is why i found the way it was handled so appalling - it was a p.r. nightmare on top of being so ugly and no 1 involved seemed to realize that you do not go into silence mode in a nightmare).
c.i. noted it over at the common ills and i noted it here. and again, we both noted that c.i. was not the only source. c.i. was the 1 who broke the news to me. the thursday before the non-announcement was made on friday. that's when i started working old contacts. if you know the common ills, you know c.i. avoids the sensationalism and does 'in fairness' but the other sources didn't do that.
but that was noted here and it was noted at the common ills.
c.i. had an inside source and, as c.i. repeatedly says, 'the common ills is not a breaking news site.'
but bigbadbradlousyreader, if c.i. hadn't disclosed the dlc or unfiltered and i hadn't, guess what?
that's not a conflict of interest. you are allowed to protect your sources.
i think that besides working on reading more closely, you might want to work on definitions.
instead we were upfront it because c.i. wanted it that way. and the thanks is some dope named bigbadbrad wants to say 'undisclosed conflict of interest!'
my other sources on that story spoke to me with the understanding that they would remain confidential (and they will). that's not a conflict of interest.
thanks for playing though. sadly, no parting gifts for you.
c.i. also raised an issue last night about ___ and ____'s failure to address skewed reporting on npr. (yes, i know who ___ is.) i couldn't agree with that post more. if you haven't read it, i suggest you do.
if some 1 is making it their role/job to inform you of what the media is getting wrong, that includes npr. and i agree that when you have a staff and you have people e-mailing you about npr and including links to the npr stories that you can use to listen to the story online, there's no excuse not to be addressing npr on a regular basis.
failing to do so sends the impression that npr is not spinning, that it's solid information.
npr is already painted as 'liberal' by the right wingers. it's not liberal. (i'd love it if it were, but it's not.)
it has millions of listeners and a huge reach. the failure to address spinning or distortions when they are broadcast on npr is a huge 1.
in the post, c.i. included a link to 'when npr fails you, who you gonna call? not the ombudsman.'
i've noted that 1 before here. but i'll note it again.
with mere weeks to go before the election, juan williams angered listeners with his 'analysis' of john kerry's remarks. npr had to address it because listeners were outraged.
so they brought on robert kagan and listed the 'peace' organization he belonged to before he spoke. it was hilarious as kagan pretended to really 'hope' that he was misunderstanding kerry.
marvelous performance.
why performance?
as c.i. tells you in that post, but npr didn't, robert kagan was married to a woman working for dick cheney.
juan williams's 'analysis' of kerry's remarks upset listeners who felt it was lacking. to clarify, they bring on robert kagan.
weeks before the election, they allow kagan to weigh in on kerry.
without telling you that his wife works for dick cheney.
that, bigbadbradlousyreader, is a conflict of interest.
and it's a damn shame that if you didn't read the common ills (or buzzflash who linked to the story) you didn't hear about it. you still haven't heard about it.
why is that?
why is npr given such a fucking pass?
juan williams distorted john kerry's remarks and pissed off listeners. npr 'corrects' that by bringing on robert kagan who distorts it as well (in a wonderful acting bit of pauses and i-hope-i'm-wrongs). and this clarification, this correction is being done by someone married to victoria nuland who works for dick cheney.
and no listener was told that. (nor any reader of the npr ombudsman's online column -- ombudsman took a pass as well.)
you want to tell me that back in october john kerry supporters had no right to be told what npr had just done?
where were the big brave truth tellers then?
that's story has still only been told at the common ills.
(and you've got links in c.i.'s post to the new york press, christian science monitor and alternet on the marriage and nuland's employment so this wasn't a marriage the press had never covered.)
this was a huge of conflict of interest. a man married to a woman who works for dick cheney, who's running for vice-president, who therefore works for the administration is allowed to go on npr and weigh in on the opponent. that's bad.
not telling listeners about it is beyond bad.
and why the net wasn't alive with this story then or since is a question you might be better off putting to those who knew about it. and ____ knew about it. the ombudsman at npr knew about it. both chose to ignore it.
as for why the blog world never dealt with the story, i'll assume they missed it. but nothing's stopping them from writing about it now.
it's an important story and it goes to problems with the press. you'd think people would be interested in it. you'd think bloggers would want their readers to know all about it. third estate sunday review has noted it. i've noted it.
i don't know why others don't.
i do know that npr gets away with this sort of shit because they are not called on it.
there seem to be two sets of standards: (1) npr and (2) the rest of the media.
if you're going to take a pass on npr then maybe you should note that on your site?
and all the people talking about how it was a 'nicer' election in 2004 than in 2000 might want to grow up a little and realize that there are millions of stories like the robert kagan 1 that they didn't catch and they didn't pay attention to.
that's why i read the common ills and am a member of the common ills community. if you're the mainstream media, you're not above criticism. just because the right thinks npr is 'liberal' doesn't grant them a pass. because the right wing has put that perception out there, it's all the more important to hold them accountable.
i think if you run the two posts together, you've got a very distrubing portrait of some problems with the blog world. and i think we need to be looking at that.
i also think that bloggers on the left who quote and praise the 'bull moose' need to be held accountable for that. but i'll go into that another time.
wally is my hero. he stood up tuesday in his class and gave a speech on the patriot act. my question for other readers is what are you doing?
sherry's calling her Congress people. lola's e-mailing. a number of you are talking about the issue in your circle and getting the word out.
pope this, pope that. tom delay, tom delay, john corny out of texas, john corny out of texas.
who's telling you about the patriot act right now?
that's an important issue and 1 that effects you if you live in the united states. it may not be sexy. it may not allow for funnies. but it does matter. and we can't count on the mainstream media to get the word out.
democracy now is covering it. thank god for democracy now. today you got to hear senator dick durbin's remarks on the patriot act on democracy now. did you catch those on good morning america? did you get to hear him on nightly news?
here's an excerpt from democracy now's report today on senator richard durbin's remarks
in the senate yesterday:
The point I would like to make is this: If the goal here was, as you say, to enhance federal government sharing intelligence, we could have stayed away from the PATRIOT Act altogether and really focused on the agencies working with one another and sharing information so that the Phoenix memo wouldn't be buried in the depths of the FBI, and so that the CIA and all of the other agencies would communicate. So, before we go to challenge in any respect the Bill of Rights, I think we had a lot of homework to do when it came to the management of information at the federal government. Maybe this new intelligence reform will move us in a more positive direction.
The second thing I’d like you to address, if you would consider, is the Section 215. Section 215, which has caused great pain for people in many communities, such as the American Library Association, not historically a politically active group, has become very active, because they believe the PATRIOT Act went too far. They believe, for example, if an FBI field office believed that an unidentified terrorist checked out a book entitled, "How to Build a Dirty Bomb," from the Chicago Public Library, that Section 215 gives the government the authority to search the library records of hundreds of ordinary citizens in an attempt to identify the terrorist, catching in this net and sweeping in innocent people who have checked out books in the library never knowing that they were to be swept up in the potential of finding a terrorist. Similarly, if an FBI field office came up with information that the wife of a suspected terrorist had an abortion, and therefore, they would go out, they would set out through Section 215 to search the records of a hospital or clinic for all the women who had received an abortion whether or not they might have been associated with any terrorist activities. Section 215 allows all of that information to be gathered in secret through the FISA court and many innocent people to have their privacy compromised in the process.
4/05/2005
what c.i. said
i finally get a moment before the next group comes through the house and get on to write about the patriot act but stop off at the common ills and all i'm left with is 'what c.i. said.'
because it's covered over there. here are the posts to read:
'Three stories from this morning's New York Times'
'Try to dig a little deeper today and work towards getting the word out on the Patriot Act'
'Resources for information regarding the Patriot Act'
i'll try to write tonight but if i do it will be late. i'm doing everything on my end to 'tell somebody' and i hope you are as well.
because it's covered over there. here are the posts to read:
'Three stories from this morning's New York Times'
'Try to dig a little deeper today and work towards getting the word out on the Patriot Act'
'Resources for information regarding the Patriot Act'
i'll try to write tonight but if i do it will be late. i'm doing everything on my end to 'tell somebody' and i hope you are as well.
4/04/2005
al franken is dlc
readers who've been with me from the start know that i can laugh with al franken at times and even have a fantasy where i treat him like the little cupcake he seems to think it's okay to treat women like. readers from the start also know i have serious problems with al franken's views when they seem to be republican lite.
there are times when i've seriously thought some 1 should ask al, 'did you vote for ronald reagan in 1980? how about 1984?'
tamara, a common ills community member, e-mails me about how al is dlc and that is something i've suspected as well. but as i read through her e-mail, she's saying that janeane garofalo said it on air at air america last week.
so i e-mail c.i. and say, 'what's the deal? did janeane say this?'
c.i. responds janeane said that on thursday while she and sam seder were interviewing hendrick hertzberg on thursday and janeane says it then.
well it's not that surprising, is it?
now we get why he thinks it's 'cute' to continue to tear apart arafat. now we get why he embarrasses himself by spit cleaning the jock strap of any g.i. that comes on the show as he turns into a nervous, horny virgin saying 'thank you for your service! thank you for your service!'
as many have noted, al never says that to any 1 else. librarains, teachers, peace activists, many people give service. but in a dlc brain, you do whatever's easiest. you do whatever isn't controversial.
and that's al franken.
i am officially releasing my sexual fantasy of treating al franken like a cupcake.
and i'll be bringing the big guns out after the fat fuck in the future.
this is why weeping boy does those ads hawking the new republic. he's the poster boy for the new republic. don't mistake him for a brave voice. he narrows the debate and he destroys the progressive movement.
there are times when i've seriously thought some 1 should ask al, 'did you vote for ronald reagan in 1980? how about 1984?'
tamara, a common ills community member, e-mails me about how al is dlc and that is something i've suspected as well. but as i read through her e-mail, she's saying that janeane garofalo said it on air at air america last week.
so i e-mail c.i. and say, 'what's the deal? did janeane say this?'
c.i. responds janeane said that on thursday while she and sam seder were interviewing hendrick hertzberg on thursday and janeane says it then.
well it's not that surprising, is it?
now we get why he thinks it's 'cute' to continue to tear apart arafat. now we get why he embarrasses himself by spit cleaning the jock strap of any g.i. that comes on the show as he turns into a nervous, horny virgin saying 'thank you for your service! thank you for your service!'
as many have noted, al never says that to any 1 else. librarains, teachers, peace activists, many people give service. but in a dlc brain, you do whatever's easiest. you do whatever isn't controversial.
and that's al franken.
i am officially releasing my sexual fantasy of treating al franken like a cupcake.
and i'll be bringing the big guns out after the fat fuck in the future.
this is why weeping boy does those ads hawking the new republic. he's the poster boy for the new republic. don't mistake him for a brave voice. he narrows the debate and he destroys the progressive movement.
4/03/2005
keepin' it faux at the new york timid
well i have a heads up for you. if you want chuckles read nicholas confessore's "here's why the centrist deomcrat is feeling unloved." it's a perfect example of bad writing and filled with howlers. you'll find it on the back page of the week in review section of the new york times.
the patron saint of the centrist is the toad looking daniel patrick moynihan. infamous for his own war on social security at an earlier time and aided by the new york times.
does the timid, to use c.i.'s phrase, have a thing for bad hair? possibly. have you seen gail collins's hair -- super cuts would be a step up for the editorial page editor! but between the buck teeth and the bushy eyebrows, possibly her lack of hair 'style' is the least of her problems.
but the real reason the new york timid supported moynihan is because that's what they all do, attempt to snuff out the progressive spirit in this country. c.i. pointed out in an earlier post that while struggling to make it, they received a bail out from wall street with the apparent understanding that they would snuff out the progressive spirit sweeping the country in the early part of the 20th century. they did their damndest to do that. and they're still doing it.
keepin' it faux at the new york timid.
which explains father confessor's valentine to the likes of professional bad hair sporters
no-joe lieberman and 'let me have it both ways' ellen tauscher -- how you going to explain that anti-immigrant vote to the constituents, ellie?
the faux objective paper assigns faux reporter confessore to hum the praises of faux democrats and it's like a symphony of kazoos buzzing around in your head.
but when it comes to bad hair, tausher and liberman are mere pikers compared to their buddies at centrists.org.
poor little scotty payne thinks that comb-over is working. hint, scotty, it's not. no, it isn't. you're shedding hair faster than nbc's joey sheds viewers. might wanna rethink that comb-over.
then we go to jeffy lemieux. little jeffy's a big boy. looks exactly like you'd expect a man named lemieux to look. jeffy, you also get the vote for worst dresser. who but little big boy jeffy would think to mix a garrish, eye sore tie with a blue shirt and brown jacket. and little jeffy can't even fix his collar which is why you can't help but notice the shirt collars bulging out from the buttens. who dressed you, jeffy?
then we have maya macguineas who thinks 'power hair' means stealing from ann archer's limp look circa fatal attraction. not working out for you, is it maya? has anyone ever thought to suggest you consider a veronica lake, peak-a-boo hair style to cover that one eye that's so much smaller than the other? just asking. and the heavily padded shoulders of that jacket, honey, you are stuck in the eighties. no wonder your org cant get it's head out of its ass. though possibly working for mccain might explain it as well?
which brings us to eddie lorenzen who might want to be called 'big ed' but would have to first give up that peter pan, bowl cut hair do. does mommy still cut your hair in the kitchen, eddie? are you a big enough boy now that you don't need to sit on a phone book while mommy cuts your hair? horizontal striped tie, blue shirt with vertical white stripes and what appears to a dark shade of pea green jacket (maybe it just needs dry cleaning?) you're look is all you ... because no one else would have it.
folks, these are the fashion disasters who want to steer our party to the right. they'd be kicked out of applebeas but somehow they think they can be power players in d.c. it's sad. looking at them. real sad.
but while they plot their revenge of the nerds style comeback, be sure the new york timid will be along for the ride to cheer them on.
that's why nicky 'kiss ass' confessore quotes eddie on democrats and mentions eddie worked for loser-boy charlie stenholm (billie was once represented by charlie and boy she can write a blistering e-mail -- billie i love your spirit!) before stenholm lost his seat due to tom delay's great fiber purge of 2003. sort of gives you the idea that these 'centrists democrats' of the title and little eddie are working for the democratic party, huh?
here's what it says on the web site i've linked to, please note it carefully:
Centrists.Org is a non-partisan, non-profit, organization formed under section 501(c)(3) of the tax code, and dedicated to public education on vital public policy matters. Contributions to Centrists.Org are tax deductible.
non-partisan org, well you are who you play with. it's not enough that you all share bad hair and bad fashion sense, now you're all in the sandbox together. who knows what you're plotting now?
let's talk little ed a minute more cause he worked with 1 of the groups pushing privatization in the late 90s. what? you thought the bully boy got that idea all on his own?
no, you had corporate servents on the public dole selling out your interests long before the bully boy sleazed his way into the oval office. same org that little eddie's online bio claims also speaks proudly of their hard work to pass nafta.
are you feeling the love yet?
me neither.
by the way little edsie, care to explain to me why the group you have worked with thinks it okay to post online a statement to the president in 2001, a report (final report) but warns against quoting from it without permission? just wondering, edsie?
your buds made it public and it certainly effects the tax payers so i'm curious as to why your little 'circle jerk' (see bill keller, i can use the term too!) thinks it okay to post 'social security reform lelegislation developed by the national commission on retirement policy' but seems to think you can play the riaa clamping down on napster?
right there on the title page it announces that it's a report from the president's commission and gives the date 12-11-2001.
i would urge everyone to read the report that they retain quote rights to. it's good for a hoot. and you'll realize that lieberman, this is his crowd after all, didn't suddenly decide that maybe hanging with the bully boy on privatized accounts was the right thing to do, he and his kind have leaned that way all along.
back in the early days of the common ills, you could post comments to entries. members hated that because these centrists jack asses would come by and post things along the lines of 'there's nothing more than beautiful than a centrist democrat.' yeah, like leaves changing colors in autumn, nothing soothes the heart more than watching so-called dems morph into repubes-lite.
common ills community member keesha had a snapping comeback to that idiot and i wish could remember it but i'll just note that keesha told it like it was.
and i'll note for all these other fence sitters, the only thing you get from sitting on a fence is a pair of pants riding up your crack. not a pretty sight, is it? no.
but the timid and their nicholas confessore rush in, where wise men and women rightly refuse to tread, to let you know that the whole shutting out of these fashion and hair challenged repube-lites with a twise is just beyond cruel.
silly nicky closes his article with this howler:
as the ascendant republican establishment deepens its beltway roots, an old species, the self-consciously bipartisan centrist, searches for a niche. but the partisan centerist has already found one.
nicky's blowing smoke out of his ass but how else can you write a valentine to repube-lites?
nicky gets 1 thing right. powerbrokers did move the democratic party to the center (and sell out the soul of the party) in the 90s. and that did lead to the republicans moving further right.
for those who just don't get, when we move to the center to accommodate, the right moves further right. it's like a game of tag and the repubes keep getting away and moving the country increasingly right. which is why so many of us are arguing for a hard left from the democratic party. in this round of tag, let them be 'it' and chase us.
let me note that betty has another post up. it's excellent and it's the start of you understanding "bettina." i think you'll enjoy it:
And at the bottom of the second page, I read that he has a new book coming out and my first thought is, "I have not finished Thomas Friedman's last book! After I finish washing out his silk boxers, I still have to take all the ketchups he brought home from McDonald's and squeeze them from the packets into the large empty bottle because he says fine eating places like McDonald's have a better quality of ketchup than anything you can buy in a store." That may be true but my fingers ache from doing the same with mayonaise packets and from the hot sauce packets he picked up at Taco Bell.
I say to him, "Thomas Friedman, when your friends took us to Elaine's Friday, there were no ketchup packets to be seen."
Thomas Friedman explained that his friends cannot afford the finer places that he takes me too. And that since they insist upon picking up the check to have the honor of bragging that they dined with Thomas Friedman, he cannot very well suggest that they take him to McDonald's or Sonic or Taco Bell or any of the other high class places he takes me. I am sorry that his friends do not have the money he has.
But I have asked for a food processor forever now because Thomas Friedman is on a hummus kick and he has told me that food processors are "declasse" and that we do not waste his money on "crap." So I use this mortar and pestle to ground the sesame seeds whenever the hummus mood strikes Thomas Friedman with him urging me to be "faster" and "faster" the whole time.
also worth noting is c.i.'s hysterical 'clubbing with the new york times:'
Moving on. You realize you've hit the frou-frou, chi-chi, upscale club scene as you hear Somini Sengupta work in the word "ennui" while doing a poor job of concealing a self-satisfied smirk. (The headline writer merely apes her lead with "Fear, Ennui and Doubt Underlie Calm in Nepal's Capital").
Sengupta, baby, stick to the art galleries when trying to score with impressive vocab, okay? Striving for tome poem, but coming off like fourth rate Cole Porter ["Come to the Supermarket (In Old Peking)"], Sengupta offers such passages as:
On a recent Sunday afternoon,
as the market women sat on their haunches hawking cabbages,
and the riot police milled about with eyes darting this way and that,
Nepalis revolting against their king's emergency rule decree
straggled up the narrow alleys in ones and twos.
Walk on. Walk on.org. Note the poster art as you're dragged to the next club while you give it up to Angela Jimenez and whomever decided her photo was just the thing to accompany Andrew Jacobs' "AIDS Fighters Face a Resistant Form of Apathy." Apathy. AIDS. Even more deadly new strain.
Does it bring to mind two bodies pressed tightly against one another? Does your mind conjure a framed crotch shot in some sort of hommage to the Rolling Stones album cover Sticky Fingers? Well in the minds of "Girls Just Want To Have Fun" Angela Jimenez and the editor/s it conjures up exactly that. Like drunken revelers at karaoke night doing the stiff-neck-head-jerk while singing/slurring "She like to par-tay all the time," I doubt either Jiminez or the editor/s realize how much they've embarrassed themselves. Flee the club quickly before you're tainted by association.
check out betty and c.i. we need more laughter, especially when there's a point to it.
the patron saint of the centrist is the toad looking daniel patrick moynihan. infamous for his own war on social security at an earlier time and aided by the new york times.
does the timid, to use c.i.'s phrase, have a thing for bad hair? possibly. have you seen gail collins's hair -- super cuts would be a step up for the editorial page editor! but between the buck teeth and the bushy eyebrows, possibly her lack of hair 'style' is the least of her problems.
but the real reason the new york timid supported moynihan is because that's what they all do, attempt to snuff out the progressive spirit in this country. c.i. pointed out in an earlier post that while struggling to make it, they received a bail out from wall street with the apparent understanding that they would snuff out the progressive spirit sweeping the country in the early part of the 20th century. they did their damndest to do that. and they're still doing it.
keepin' it faux at the new york timid.
which explains father confessor's valentine to the likes of professional bad hair sporters
no-joe lieberman and 'let me have it both ways' ellen tauscher -- how you going to explain that anti-immigrant vote to the constituents, ellie?
the faux objective paper assigns faux reporter confessore to hum the praises of faux democrats and it's like a symphony of kazoos buzzing around in your head.
but when it comes to bad hair, tausher and liberman are mere pikers compared to their buddies at centrists.org.
poor little scotty payne thinks that comb-over is working. hint, scotty, it's not. no, it isn't. you're shedding hair faster than nbc's joey sheds viewers. might wanna rethink that comb-over.
then we go to jeffy lemieux. little jeffy's a big boy. looks exactly like you'd expect a man named lemieux to look. jeffy, you also get the vote for worst dresser. who but little big boy jeffy would think to mix a garrish, eye sore tie with a blue shirt and brown jacket. and little jeffy can't even fix his collar which is why you can't help but notice the shirt collars bulging out from the buttens. who dressed you, jeffy?
then we have maya macguineas who thinks 'power hair' means stealing from ann archer's limp look circa fatal attraction. not working out for you, is it maya? has anyone ever thought to suggest you consider a veronica lake, peak-a-boo hair style to cover that one eye that's so much smaller than the other? just asking. and the heavily padded shoulders of that jacket, honey, you are stuck in the eighties. no wonder your org cant get it's head out of its ass. though possibly working for mccain might explain it as well?
which brings us to eddie lorenzen who might want to be called 'big ed' but would have to first give up that peter pan, bowl cut hair do. does mommy still cut your hair in the kitchen, eddie? are you a big enough boy now that you don't need to sit on a phone book while mommy cuts your hair? horizontal striped tie, blue shirt with vertical white stripes and what appears to a dark shade of pea green jacket (maybe it just needs dry cleaning?) you're look is all you ... because no one else would have it.
folks, these are the fashion disasters who want to steer our party to the right. they'd be kicked out of applebeas but somehow they think they can be power players in d.c. it's sad. looking at them. real sad.
but while they plot their revenge of the nerds style comeback, be sure the new york timid will be along for the ride to cheer them on.
that's why nicky 'kiss ass' confessore quotes eddie on democrats and mentions eddie worked for loser-boy charlie stenholm (billie was once represented by charlie and boy she can write a blistering e-mail -- billie i love your spirit!) before stenholm lost his seat due to tom delay's great fiber purge of 2003. sort of gives you the idea that these 'centrists democrats' of the title and little eddie are working for the democratic party, huh?
here's what it says on the web site i've linked to, please note it carefully:
Centrists.Org is a non-partisan, non-profit, organization formed under section 501(c)(3) of the tax code, and dedicated to public education on vital public policy matters. Contributions to Centrists.Org are tax deductible.
non-partisan org, well you are who you play with. it's not enough that you all share bad hair and bad fashion sense, now you're all in the sandbox together. who knows what you're plotting now?
let's talk little ed a minute more cause he worked with 1 of the groups pushing privatization in the late 90s. what? you thought the bully boy got that idea all on his own?
no, you had corporate servents on the public dole selling out your interests long before the bully boy sleazed his way into the oval office. same org that little eddie's online bio claims also speaks proudly of their hard work to pass nafta.
are you feeling the love yet?
me neither.
by the way little edsie, care to explain to me why the group you have worked with thinks it okay to post online a statement to the president in 2001, a report (final report) but warns against quoting from it without permission? just wondering, edsie?
your buds made it public and it certainly effects the tax payers so i'm curious as to why your little 'circle jerk' (see bill keller, i can use the term too!) thinks it okay to post 'social security reform lelegislation developed by the national commission on retirement policy' but seems to think you can play the riaa clamping down on napster?
right there on the title page it announces that it's a report from the president's commission and gives the date 12-11-2001.
i would urge everyone to read the report that they retain quote rights to. it's good for a hoot. and you'll realize that lieberman, this is his crowd after all, didn't suddenly decide that maybe hanging with the bully boy on privatized accounts was the right thing to do, he and his kind have leaned that way all along.
back in the early days of the common ills, you could post comments to entries. members hated that because these centrists jack asses would come by and post things along the lines of 'there's nothing more than beautiful than a centrist democrat.' yeah, like leaves changing colors in autumn, nothing soothes the heart more than watching so-called dems morph into repubes-lite.
common ills community member keesha had a snapping comeback to that idiot and i wish could remember it but i'll just note that keesha told it like it was.
and i'll note for all these other fence sitters, the only thing you get from sitting on a fence is a pair of pants riding up your crack. not a pretty sight, is it? no.
but the timid and their nicholas confessore rush in, where wise men and women rightly refuse to tread, to let you know that the whole shutting out of these fashion and hair challenged repube-lites with a twise is just beyond cruel.
silly nicky closes his article with this howler:
as the ascendant republican establishment deepens its beltway roots, an old species, the self-consciously bipartisan centrist, searches for a niche. but the partisan centerist has already found one.
nicky's blowing smoke out of his ass but how else can you write a valentine to repube-lites?
nicky gets 1 thing right. powerbrokers did move the democratic party to the center (and sell out the soul of the party) in the 90s. and that did lead to the republicans moving further right.
for those who just don't get, when we move to the center to accommodate, the right moves further right. it's like a game of tag and the repubes keep getting away and moving the country increasingly right. which is why so many of us are arguing for a hard left from the democratic party. in this round of tag, let them be 'it' and chase us.
let me note that betty has another post up. it's excellent and it's the start of you understanding "bettina." i think you'll enjoy it:
And at the bottom of the second page, I read that he has a new book coming out and my first thought is, "I have not finished Thomas Friedman's last book! After I finish washing out his silk boxers, I still have to take all the ketchups he brought home from McDonald's and squeeze them from the packets into the large empty bottle because he says fine eating places like McDonald's have a better quality of ketchup than anything you can buy in a store." That may be true but my fingers ache from doing the same with mayonaise packets and from the hot sauce packets he picked up at Taco Bell.
I say to him, "Thomas Friedman, when your friends took us to Elaine's Friday, there were no ketchup packets to be seen."
Thomas Friedman explained that his friends cannot afford the finer places that he takes me too. And that since they insist upon picking up the check to have the honor of bragging that they dined with Thomas Friedman, he cannot very well suggest that they take him to McDonald's or Sonic or Taco Bell or any of the other high class places he takes me. I am sorry that his friends do not have the money he has.
But I have asked for a food processor forever now because Thomas Friedman is on a hummus kick and he has told me that food processors are "declasse" and that we do not waste his money on "crap." So I use this mortar and pestle to ground the sesame seeds whenever the hummus mood strikes Thomas Friedman with him urging me to be "faster" and "faster" the whole time.
also worth noting is c.i.'s hysterical 'clubbing with the new york times:'
Moving on. You realize you've hit the frou-frou, chi-chi, upscale club scene as you hear Somini Sengupta work in the word "ennui" while doing a poor job of concealing a self-satisfied smirk. (The headline writer merely apes her lead with "Fear, Ennui and Doubt Underlie Calm in Nepal's Capital").
Sengupta, baby, stick to the art galleries when trying to score with impressive vocab, okay? Striving for tome poem, but coming off like fourth rate Cole Porter ["Come to the Supermarket (In Old Peking)"], Sengupta offers such passages as:
On a recent Sunday afternoon,
as the market women sat on their haunches hawking cabbages,
and the riot police milled about with eyes darting this way and that,
Nepalis revolting against their king's emergency rule decree
straggled up the narrow alleys in ones and twos.
Walk on. Walk on.org. Note the poster art as you're dragged to the next club while you give it up to Angela Jimenez and whomever decided her photo was just the thing to accompany Andrew Jacobs' "AIDS Fighters Face a Resistant Form of Apathy." Apathy. AIDS. Even more deadly new strain.
Does it bring to mind two bodies pressed tightly against one another? Does your mind conjure a framed crotch shot in some sort of hommage to the Rolling Stones album cover Sticky Fingers? Well in the minds of "Girls Just Want To Have Fun" Angela Jimenez and the editor/s it conjures up exactly that. Like drunken revelers at karaoke night doing the stiff-neck-head-jerk while singing/slurring "She like to par-tay all the time," I doubt either Jiminez or the editor/s realize how much they've embarrassed themselves. Flee the club quickly before you're tainted by association.
check out betty and c.i. we need more laughter, especially when there's a point to it.
4/01/2005
tear down the gates, don't appoint new gatekeepers
there have been so many great e-mails coming in lately.
i want to give shout outs to sherry, maria, martha, carl and edmund especially but they've all been so great. and i want to note that wally writes his class has been focusing this week on defining what they stand for. this is the list that wally's group came up with for his class:
1) a fair and decent living wage
2) equality & dignity for all
3) going beyond the obvious media sources
4) media regulation
5) energy regulation
6) addressing the issue of the homeless
7) universal health care
8) finding non-violent ways to resolve conflict
9) social security
10) progressive income tax where corporations pay their share
are wally and his friends not the smartest? these are high school students, our future, and we're damn lucky to have people like wally and his friends.
as i noted last night, blog betty is live now. if you haven't yet checked out thomas friedman is
a great man, please do so. it's hilarious. and it's hard to talk about because i've seen betty's outline so i know some of the details and events coming. no spoiler alerts because i'm not going to spoil anything. hop on the ride and prepare to be amused.
i hope you're proud of betty because i am.
and isn't she organized? an outline for future posts? i just wing these posts!
as c.i. noted last night, betty becomes the fourth common ills community member to start their own blog. bill keller and the new york times may be trembling! lol.
seriously, the common ills is a pretty important site to me. i've blogged before about how i wasn't much of an internet person. i'd checked out sites when people passed them on and most of them couldn't hold my interest. there's often a good posted reply in a thread after you read through about 40 or so entries. but who has the kind of patience?
so mainly, i went to news papers or to buzzflash and that was pretty much all i did online.
then my very best friend in the world elaine kept after me to check out the common ills and i was hooked. i've learned about the brilliant ron and his blog why are we back in iraq? i've learned about the incredible jude and her blog iddybud. (both sites can be found in my links on the side.) i've been exposed to writers like katrina vanden heuvel (the nation) and matthew rothschild (the progressive).
and most of all i got to be part of a community and see people weigh in. i wouldn't be blogging now if it weren't for the common ills (or for c.i. who helped so much from the start and still will drop everything when i'm having a problem - thank you, c.i.).
and certainly i owe a debt to folding star of a winding road who was the 1st community member to start blogging. there were days when i couldn't get a post together and felt like i was a complete failure but folding star might miss a day and just go back to it. so i've followed fs's lead.
and i certainly owe a debt to jess, jim, ty, dona and ava of the 3rd estate sunday review who have helped me, promoted my blog and allowed me to assist them which is both fun and a learning experience. i was the 2nd common ills community member to start blogging, 3rd estate sunday review was right behind me.
and now betty becomes the fourth. and the newbie. i get to feel like an old pro now!
i think it's great that the common ills has inspired so many of us to start blogging. if you go by web sites, we've got 4, if you go people inspired we've got 8. bill keller's concerns of a circle jerk may yet come true! though, let me restate, as a woman i've never been involved in a circle jerk. no doubt it's a happy memory for the executive editor of the new york times, but keller, how dare you presume that all bloggers are male.
and that brings me to something i stand firmly for: more voices. more voices, not less. when i write something here and i get an e-mail saying 'i feel just the same, why aren't people like us heard in the mainstream media?' i respond that we are making our own media.
and we are. and we need to think about what we stand for as we remake the media. we need to remember common ills community member keshawn's comments and make sure that as we remake the media we are not just becoming new voices doing the exact same thing, new players in the same system. we need to be remaking the system so that it is inclusive and reflective.
i was reading a book of essays by gore vidal that c.i. and elaine had both been recommending and was surprised to learn that gore vidal used to be on network tv. i know of gore vidal only through his writing and his appearences on democracy now! and the majority report. but a voice like gore vidal could once be heard in the mainstream media. and we need to think about and be sure that we are encouraging voices and not silencing them.
like the common ills, this site is a site for the left. and because of that, i will highlight the left. the right can start their own sites. but those of us on the left need to be sure that we allow other voices on the left to be heard. when some 1 writes me about how going after the new republic or cjr daily might mean i'm not linked or noted by them, i just bash on through. and reading gore vidal's essays, i get the feeling he just told it like he saw it too.
and at some point, that meant gore vidal lost many platforms he had. so we need to be sure as we go about remaking the media that we don't back off from important voices because it's 'prudent' or because it might cost us 'respectability.'
the point of remaking the media is not to create a new cokie roberts or a new sam donaldson.
we've had them. we've suffered from them. for instance, i want jude to get the recognition she more than deserves, for instance, but i never want to turn on my tv and see her practicing clutch-the-pearls 'journalims' (which i don't see her ever doing, she's too smart). but i do think that there is a danger that as certain voices get recognition from the mainstream, they may be tempted to back off from certain positions. i think we already saw that happen after the election when 2 bloggers attempted to dismiss the ohio voting issue right after the election. grassroots had to drive that (with the help of people like laura flanders and randi rhodes).
listening to 2 bloggers on the radio tell the nation that there was nothing to see and to move on really offended me. remaking the media should not be about installing new gatekeepers.
so let's work together on tearing down the gates to create a more inclusive media, not to annoint new gatekeepers.
i want to give shout outs to sherry, maria, martha, carl and edmund especially but they've all been so great. and i want to note that wally writes his class has been focusing this week on defining what they stand for. this is the list that wally's group came up with for his class:
1) a fair and decent living wage
2) equality & dignity for all
3) going beyond the obvious media sources
4) media regulation
5) energy regulation
6) addressing the issue of the homeless
7) universal health care
8) finding non-violent ways to resolve conflict
9) social security
10) progressive income tax where corporations pay their share
are wally and his friends not the smartest? these are high school students, our future, and we're damn lucky to have people like wally and his friends.
as i noted last night, blog betty is live now. if you haven't yet checked out thomas friedman is
a great man, please do so. it's hilarious. and it's hard to talk about because i've seen betty's outline so i know some of the details and events coming. no spoiler alerts because i'm not going to spoil anything. hop on the ride and prepare to be amused.
i hope you're proud of betty because i am.
and isn't she organized? an outline for future posts? i just wing these posts!
as c.i. noted last night, betty becomes the fourth common ills community member to start their own blog. bill keller and the new york times may be trembling! lol.
seriously, the common ills is a pretty important site to me. i've blogged before about how i wasn't much of an internet person. i'd checked out sites when people passed them on and most of them couldn't hold my interest. there's often a good posted reply in a thread after you read through about 40 or so entries. but who has the kind of patience?
so mainly, i went to news papers or to buzzflash and that was pretty much all i did online.
then my very best friend in the world elaine kept after me to check out the common ills and i was hooked. i've learned about the brilliant ron and his blog why are we back in iraq? i've learned about the incredible jude and her blog iddybud. (both sites can be found in my links on the side.) i've been exposed to writers like katrina vanden heuvel (the nation) and matthew rothschild (the progressive).
and most of all i got to be part of a community and see people weigh in. i wouldn't be blogging now if it weren't for the common ills (or for c.i. who helped so much from the start and still will drop everything when i'm having a problem - thank you, c.i.).
and certainly i owe a debt to folding star of a winding road who was the 1st community member to start blogging. there were days when i couldn't get a post together and felt like i was a complete failure but folding star might miss a day and just go back to it. so i've followed fs's lead.
and i certainly owe a debt to jess, jim, ty, dona and ava of the 3rd estate sunday review who have helped me, promoted my blog and allowed me to assist them which is both fun and a learning experience. i was the 2nd common ills community member to start blogging, 3rd estate sunday review was right behind me.
and now betty becomes the fourth. and the newbie. i get to feel like an old pro now!
i think it's great that the common ills has inspired so many of us to start blogging. if you go by web sites, we've got 4, if you go people inspired we've got 8. bill keller's concerns of a circle jerk may yet come true! though, let me restate, as a woman i've never been involved in a circle jerk. no doubt it's a happy memory for the executive editor of the new york times, but keller, how dare you presume that all bloggers are male.
and that brings me to something i stand firmly for: more voices. more voices, not less. when i write something here and i get an e-mail saying 'i feel just the same, why aren't people like us heard in the mainstream media?' i respond that we are making our own media.
and we are. and we need to think about what we stand for as we remake the media. we need to remember common ills community member keshawn's comments and make sure that as we remake the media we are not just becoming new voices doing the exact same thing, new players in the same system. we need to be remaking the system so that it is inclusive and reflective.
i was reading a book of essays by gore vidal that c.i. and elaine had both been recommending and was surprised to learn that gore vidal used to be on network tv. i know of gore vidal only through his writing and his appearences on democracy now! and the majority report. but a voice like gore vidal could once be heard in the mainstream media. and we need to think about and be sure that we are encouraging voices and not silencing them.
like the common ills, this site is a site for the left. and because of that, i will highlight the left. the right can start their own sites. but those of us on the left need to be sure that we allow other voices on the left to be heard. when some 1 writes me about how going after the new republic or cjr daily might mean i'm not linked or noted by them, i just bash on through. and reading gore vidal's essays, i get the feeling he just told it like he saw it too.
and at some point, that meant gore vidal lost many platforms he had. so we need to be sure as we go about remaking the media that we don't back off from important voices because it's 'prudent' or because it might cost us 'respectability.'
the point of remaking the media is not to create a new cokie roberts or a new sam donaldson.
we've had them. we've suffered from them. for instance, i want jude to get the recognition she more than deserves, for instance, but i never want to turn on my tv and see her practicing clutch-the-pearls 'journalims' (which i don't see her ever doing, she's too smart). but i do think that there is a danger that as certain voices get recognition from the mainstream, they may be tempted to back off from certain positions. i think we already saw that happen after the election when 2 bloggers attempted to dismiss the ohio voting issue right after the election. grassroots had to drive that (with the help of people like laura flanders and randi rhodes).
listening to 2 bloggers on the radio tell the nation that there was nothing to see and to move on really offended me. remaking the media should not be about installing new gatekeepers.
so let's work together on tearing down the gates to create a more inclusive media, not to annoint new gatekeepers.
blog betty goes live
just a quick note to make sure you've heard, betty's blog went live at midnight, friday.
the blog is called thomas friedman is a great man and it's a humorous site. remember what betty said in the interview that there's a back story to "bettina." i really think you will love this site. it will be funny and will allow betty to comment on thomas friedman and other op-ed writers for the new york times.
so please visit the site and enjoy it as betty takes on the pompous thomas friedman.
the blog is called thomas friedman is a great man and it's a humorous site. remember what betty said in the interview that there's a back story to "bettina." i really think you will love this site. it will be funny and will allow betty to comment on thomas friedman and other op-ed writers for the new york times.
so please visit the site and enjoy it as betty takes on the pompous thomas friedman.
3/31/2005
blog betty
i met common ills community member betty online a month ago. she was thinking of do a blog and was asking for input and sounding borads. c.i., the gang at 3rd estate sunday review and myself have spent time reading over test entries as she worked to develop a character for her upcoming blog which will be a humorous look at a number of issues.
if i sound vague, it's because the blog goes live friday and until then we're all supposed to keep it under wraps. however, i did ask betty if she'd agree to answer a few questions. during all night sessions with the 3rd estate sunday review we've all gotten to know each other and i consider betty not just a some 1 who's blog i'm looking forward to but also a friend.
she graciously agreed to talk to me before the blog goes live. you can see this as a circle jerk, the way bill keller of the new york times would, or you can see as 1 common ills community member helping out another.
me: so here's what we know: you'll blog at least twice a week.
betty: yes, hopefully more often, but at least twice a week.
and i know which 2 days.
yes, you do.
but going into that might spoil the fun of the 1st visit. at my site, i've written about how i had to figure out what my voice was and i thought you might want to discuss your own process.
well i was wanting to blog because i do agree that more voices are needed.
you turn on the sunday chat & chews and it's the same people week after week.
exactly. and i can complain that people with my views aren't heard enough and that's important to make the point but what else am i doing, you know? so i wanted to blog and get another voice out there. and then i had problems with how did i want to write?
because you feel like you are already up to your neck in reality.
right. i've got kids, i work, and doing this blog will require some real juggling. the last thing i wanted to do was sit in front of a computer screen, exhausted, trying to figure out what to say and how to say it. i like to laugh so i was looking for something that would amuse me enough that if i missed a day or 2 of blogging, i would want to come back to it because it interested me.
so i created what i think is an interesting way into looking at things and i hope it's funny as well.
so it will be a parody and kind of like writing a novel.
did you ever try to write a novel?
oh yeah. after waiting to exhale and other books, i'd look at my friends and think, "we have interesting stories too. we could fill out a book."
and?
i got two chapters and then things just got out of control. maybe i'll go back to it someday but most likely i won't. but i did want something creative that would hopefully be humorous .
without revealing too many secrets, in your 1st entry, you are 'bettina.'
right. there's a backstory that the reader won't know at 1st, so you'll have to be patient for it to unfold. bettina is basically some 1 who is not herself and as the blog unfolds, you discover more and more about bettina. and about what happened before you met her and why you're meeting her now.
i hope that it's involving and that it hooks you. but i bet every 1 hopes that.
with me, i was worried a lot about day 2. i knew what i wanted to write on day 1 but was worried what i would write about after that 1st day. and when you were talking about having similar fears, i really identified with that.
well, i talked to a lot of people because i was worried. and what jim of 3rd estate sundy review told me was the common ills has the community thing down pat. c.i. starts out each moring with what's in the new york times. on thursdays, it's time to spotlight on independent media. on sunday's it's time to go around the globe. the 1st post after mid-day is democracy now and a look at what people are writing about around the net.
and since the common ills is a resource/review, c.i. has a pretty firm grip on what the common ills is. but jim said that there are saturdays when they're pulling together like crazy and have no idea what their final sunday edition will be like when it posts. and you laid out your topics in your title so you've got a framework. ava of the 3rd estate sunday review talked to me openly about the struggle with each sunday's edition. and she really advised me to figure out what i wanted to say and how to approach the topics ahead of time because it would cut down on a lot of problems that might arise early on.
and that's really feedback that i got back from a lot of people and from what you said and what you blogged about finding your voice. and i hope that i've created a persona that will allow me to have something to say and be interested enough to keep writing.
do you worry you might stop?
yeah, with young children and a job i do worry about finding the time. which is why i've set 2 posts a week as what i will be doing and anything additional will just be an extra. but i don't want to set the bar so high that i get sick of it and it becomes a chore.
it was really interesting to watch you through various drafts and try outs go through this phase where originally you were basically writing op-eds that were very head on and then slowly you started creating the character for yourself and using it to say things.
well thank you. i hope we aren't overhyping it. it's a milder kind of humor.
i think it's very funny and you're coming at it in a very interesting time.
when the issue of where are the female bloggers? yeah, that probably prodded me at times of doubt. and there's also the fact that i'm african-american. but i liked your point that women are out there and that if you're not seeing them it may say more about you that it does about women.
exactly. because if you're just going to the same voices, it's really not all that different from what corporate media does.
and if corpoarte media were doing their job and being less naive and also working to highlight all view points, i doubt i would be blogging.
well betty i'm glad to have you on board blogging and when your blog goes live, i will be providing a permanent link to i and hopefully a post on it.
thank you.
so that's an interview with betty and hopefully it cause you to wonder about her blog and to visit. i think betty's going to be a powerful voice for the community.
if i sound vague, it's because the blog goes live friday and until then we're all supposed to keep it under wraps. however, i did ask betty if she'd agree to answer a few questions. during all night sessions with the 3rd estate sunday review we've all gotten to know each other and i consider betty not just a some 1 who's blog i'm looking forward to but also a friend.
she graciously agreed to talk to me before the blog goes live. you can see this as a circle jerk, the way bill keller of the new york times would, or you can see as 1 common ills community member helping out another.
me: so here's what we know: you'll blog at least twice a week.
betty: yes, hopefully more often, but at least twice a week.
and i know which 2 days.
yes, you do.
but going into that might spoil the fun of the 1st visit. at my site, i've written about how i had to figure out what my voice was and i thought you might want to discuss your own process.
well i was wanting to blog because i do agree that more voices are needed.
you turn on the sunday chat & chews and it's the same people week after week.
exactly. and i can complain that people with my views aren't heard enough and that's important to make the point but what else am i doing, you know? so i wanted to blog and get another voice out there. and then i had problems with how did i want to write?
because you feel like you are already up to your neck in reality.
right. i've got kids, i work, and doing this blog will require some real juggling. the last thing i wanted to do was sit in front of a computer screen, exhausted, trying to figure out what to say and how to say it. i like to laugh so i was looking for something that would amuse me enough that if i missed a day or 2 of blogging, i would want to come back to it because it interested me.
so i created what i think is an interesting way into looking at things and i hope it's funny as well.
so it will be a parody and kind of like writing a novel.
did you ever try to write a novel?
oh yeah. after waiting to exhale and other books, i'd look at my friends and think, "we have interesting stories too. we could fill out a book."
and?
i got two chapters and then things just got out of control. maybe i'll go back to it someday but most likely i won't. but i did want something creative that would hopefully be humorous .
without revealing too many secrets, in your 1st entry, you are 'bettina.'
right. there's a backstory that the reader won't know at 1st, so you'll have to be patient for it to unfold. bettina is basically some 1 who is not herself and as the blog unfolds, you discover more and more about bettina. and about what happened before you met her and why you're meeting her now.
i hope that it's involving and that it hooks you. but i bet every 1 hopes that.
with me, i was worried a lot about day 2. i knew what i wanted to write on day 1 but was worried what i would write about after that 1st day. and when you were talking about having similar fears, i really identified with that.
well, i talked to a lot of people because i was worried. and what jim of 3rd estate sundy review told me was the common ills has the community thing down pat. c.i. starts out each moring with what's in the new york times. on thursdays, it's time to spotlight on independent media. on sunday's it's time to go around the globe. the 1st post after mid-day is democracy now and a look at what people are writing about around the net.
and since the common ills is a resource/review, c.i. has a pretty firm grip on what the common ills is. but jim said that there are saturdays when they're pulling together like crazy and have no idea what their final sunday edition will be like when it posts. and you laid out your topics in your title so you've got a framework. ava of the 3rd estate sunday review talked to me openly about the struggle with each sunday's edition. and she really advised me to figure out what i wanted to say and how to approach the topics ahead of time because it would cut down on a lot of problems that might arise early on.
and that's really feedback that i got back from a lot of people and from what you said and what you blogged about finding your voice. and i hope that i've created a persona that will allow me to have something to say and be interested enough to keep writing.
do you worry you might stop?
yeah, with young children and a job i do worry about finding the time. which is why i've set 2 posts a week as what i will be doing and anything additional will just be an extra. but i don't want to set the bar so high that i get sick of it and it becomes a chore.
it was really interesting to watch you through various drafts and try outs go through this phase where originally you were basically writing op-eds that were very head on and then slowly you started creating the character for yourself and using it to say things.
well thank you. i hope we aren't overhyping it. it's a milder kind of humor.
i think it's very funny and you're coming at it in a very interesting time.
when the issue of where are the female bloggers? yeah, that probably prodded me at times of doubt. and there's also the fact that i'm african-american. but i liked your point that women are out there and that if you're not seeing them it may say more about you that it does about women.
exactly. because if you're just going to the same voices, it's really not all that different from what corporate media does.
and if corpoarte media were doing their job and being less naive and also working to highlight all view points, i doubt i would be blogging.
well betty i'm glad to have you on board blogging and when your blog goes live, i will be providing a permanent link to i and hopefully a post on it.
thank you.
so that's an interview with betty and hopefully it cause you to wonder about her blog and to visit. i think betty's going to be a powerful voice for the community.
3/30/2005
johnnie cochran, unfiltered, 3rd estate sunday review, c.i.'s being ripped off and the new republican
in yesterday's daily howler bob somerby examined the 'liberal' statements of michelle cotts, senior editor of the new republic - aka the new republican.
ms. cotts is distressed to find that people who believe ancient man and woman rode dinasours - with saddles no less - just aren't taking seriously by the mainstream media.
i'm distressed that ms. cotts thinks that such people deserve to be taken seriously.
but honestly not surprised when i realize how there's no rational basis to the new republican. it just flutters in the wind trying to latch onto any thing that will sell a few more issues. for much of the 90s, they positioned themselves as the mag that even republicans read. now days, they trot out stephanie on the air america commercials to claim that the rag is proudly liberal. it's all about whatever will sell 1 more issue. (sales are flat for the new republican.)
in its wet dreams, the new republican likes to pretend that it has the power of the editorial board of the new york times (a power the paper rarely uses). but the reality is no 1 really listens to the rag anymore. it's a joke among liberals and as for the right, they have their in house publications that are loudly and proudly conservative. they don't need to get behind a rag that is conservative but boasts of being liberal in radio advertisements.
there was a lot of feedback on yesterday's post and even those who said they weren't into hip-hop music were able to explore what adisa banjoko was saying and apply it to some area of their own life. wally e-mailed that the whole post was part of a lively discussion in his class that included two themes "what does it take to be newsworthy" and "what should it take to be newsworthy."
obviously, adisa banjoko and keshawn provided starting points. building blocks if we want to build a better society. but as sherry wrote 'a lot of people won't want to question themselves.'
she's right about that but fortunately, she was willing to question herself.
and that's how we get started. i'm keeping it short today due to problems yesterday. i'm nervous as to whether or not this will post, honestly. i want to thank c.i. for the help yesterday.
and i want to highlight the third estate sunday review each day so let me close this out by steering you to "It's March, which means May graduations are just around the corner, so we speak with Cinamon:"
What do you think the biggest problem with arts programs are?
Well the fact, it's a very old tradition, of having the professor's think they are creating a legacy. We'll use David as an example. He was typical of his time. You trained under him and you learned his style. So he could claim credit. He didn't do all the work but he gets the credit. The professors are often tyrannical and they act as though this system still exists and it doesn't.
They don't seem to be very well infomred in current art and as a result the students don't get information on that. The BFA people do a lot of studio time but not enough art history but you have to have the background in both past and present art forms. That's the only way you can stand up to criticism once you're out of school and someone's saying "It's crap."
What sorts of current art form weren't covered in your program?
You never hear what's on the outskirts. They want you to push the boundaries, they say they want you to, but only so much as they can handle.
I'm sick of lower forms of art versus high form. Animated cells, tatooing, those can be areas in art but they're not being treated as such. Even some of the murals, but murals are traditionally better accepted, aren't getting the credit and attention they deserve.
And regardless of what accepted area they do inform you of, you never hear about female artists unless it's "Now we're going to hear about female artists." It's never integrated into the program. You don't learn much about women past or present except in a "Look, there's a woman!" kind of way and you don't learn about current artists. For instance, all those people have no idea, unless they studied themselves, who Damien Hirst is.
Here these people are famous in their local areas and in the art world but you don't hear about them. Kids need to hear about them and be prepared for the real art world.
And I won't even go into how graphics is seen as a tech class, not an arts class and I think that's crazy.
if you're thinking, 'well i'm not an art student' i'd point out that you can apply this to more than art. there's a lot of humor in the article as well. but read it and think.
and while you're thinking, remember that common ills community member betty goes 'live' to the blog world this friday, april 1st. (barring any blog problems.) i'll be giving you more information as we get closer and on friday i will provide the address for her site.
if you like humor, i think you'll enjoy it. i've just read her post for friday if she doesn't change it. she's worked with several sample start pages. and she's taken part in the third estate sunday review all night sessions along with the 3rd gang, ci and me. i think she'll provide a new voice and i'm thrilled to know that another common ills community member is blogging. that's folding star over at a winding road, the gang at 3rd estate sunday review, me and now betty. as c.i. always says, the answer is more voices, not less. and i think you'll enjoy the way betty uses her voice.
for those who've e-mailed asking if i've backed off sex talk (i haven't) because jeff left monday, the answer is no. jeff was a lot of fun. i'm not searching for 'the 1' so don't mistake me for some carrie ann moss in the matrix!
i love my sex talk. but i don't tease about it. i'm not making a joke that leaves you hanging. if you read me talking about sex or men's bodies, you know that i've gone all the way - and then some!
from democracy now i'll steer you to this note on johnnie cochran's passing:
One of the best known lawyers in the United States has passed away. Johnnie Cochran died of a brain tumor at his home in Los Angeles.
He was 67. He is perhaps best-known for his work on the defense of O.J. Simpson during a murder trial in which Cochran uttered the famous quote "If it doesn't fit, you must acquit." His family released a statement that said "Certainly, Johnnie's career will be noted as one marked by "celebrity" cases and clientele. But he and his family were most proud of the work he did on behalf of those in the community. As Johnnie always said, "an injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere." It was his rallying cry as he worked to right many wrongs, and as he provided a voice to those who needed to be heard. He was deeply committed to helping and inspiring others- especially young people. His extraordinary law career will undoubtedly stand the test of time. But it was his devotion to his fellow human beings that will remain as his true legacy."
for more on him, go to democracy now and as c.i. sometimes notes it's listen, read or watch.
speaking of c.i. i wonder if he heard the start of the majority report tonight when sam seder spoke of a blog as a community. i really think the common ills holds the lock on that term. c.i. won't even refer to the people who visit regularly as 'readers' but instead always calls them 'members.' it sure is something to see an old school blog try to rip of the common ills.
and for those who don't know, tomorrow is unfiltered last's day. if you want to check out the cool chuck d or big brain rachel maddow 1 last time, this is it. in my heart of hearts, i like to think they'd throw something to the listeners and bring lizz winstead back for the final episode but i don't see that happening. they lied to their listeners about why lizz suddenly disappeared. they waited until last week to tell the loyal listeners that unfiltered was being cancelled. so i'm not seeing that they're suddenly going to do anything for the listeners at this late date.
friday is supposed to bring the start of jerry springer's show in the place of unfiltered and i believe the hounds of hell are released on the same day.
ms. cotts is distressed to find that people who believe ancient man and woman rode dinasours - with saddles no less - just aren't taking seriously by the mainstream media.
i'm distressed that ms. cotts thinks that such people deserve to be taken seriously.
but honestly not surprised when i realize how there's no rational basis to the new republican. it just flutters in the wind trying to latch onto any thing that will sell a few more issues. for much of the 90s, they positioned themselves as the mag that even republicans read. now days, they trot out stephanie on the air america commercials to claim that the rag is proudly liberal. it's all about whatever will sell 1 more issue. (sales are flat for the new republican.)
in its wet dreams, the new republican likes to pretend that it has the power of the editorial board of the new york times (a power the paper rarely uses). but the reality is no 1 really listens to the rag anymore. it's a joke among liberals and as for the right, they have their in house publications that are loudly and proudly conservative. they don't need to get behind a rag that is conservative but boasts of being liberal in radio advertisements.
there was a lot of feedback on yesterday's post and even those who said they weren't into hip-hop music were able to explore what adisa banjoko was saying and apply it to some area of their own life. wally e-mailed that the whole post was part of a lively discussion in his class that included two themes "what does it take to be newsworthy" and "what should it take to be newsworthy."
obviously, adisa banjoko and keshawn provided starting points. building blocks if we want to build a better society. but as sherry wrote 'a lot of people won't want to question themselves.'
she's right about that but fortunately, she was willing to question herself.
and that's how we get started. i'm keeping it short today due to problems yesterday. i'm nervous as to whether or not this will post, honestly. i want to thank c.i. for the help yesterday.
and i want to highlight the third estate sunday review each day so let me close this out by steering you to "It's March, which means May graduations are just around the corner, so we speak with Cinamon:"
What do you think the biggest problem with arts programs are?
Well the fact, it's a very old tradition, of having the professor's think they are creating a legacy. We'll use David as an example. He was typical of his time. You trained under him and you learned his style. So he could claim credit. He didn't do all the work but he gets the credit. The professors are often tyrannical and they act as though this system still exists and it doesn't.
They don't seem to be very well infomred in current art and as a result the students don't get information on that. The BFA people do a lot of studio time but not enough art history but you have to have the background in both past and present art forms. That's the only way you can stand up to criticism once you're out of school and someone's saying "It's crap."
What sorts of current art form weren't covered in your program?
You never hear what's on the outskirts. They want you to push the boundaries, they say they want you to, but only so much as they can handle.
I'm sick of lower forms of art versus high form. Animated cells, tatooing, those can be areas in art but they're not being treated as such. Even some of the murals, but murals are traditionally better accepted, aren't getting the credit and attention they deserve.
And regardless of what accepted area they do inform you of, you never hear about female artists unless it's "Now we're going to hear about female artists." It's never integrated into the program. You don't learn much about women past or present except in a "Look, there's a woman!" kind of way and you don't learn about current artists. For instance, all those people have no idea, unless they studied themselves, who Damien Hirst is.
Here these people are famous in their local areas and in the art world but you don't hear about them. Kids need to hear about them and be prepared for the real art world.
And I won't even go into how graphics is seen as a tech class, not an arts class and I think that's crazy.
if you're thinking, 'well i'm not an art student' i'd point out that you can apply this to more than art. there's a lot of humor in the article as well. but read it and think.
and while you're thinking, remember that common ills community member betty goes 'live' to the blog world this friday, april 1st. (barring any blog problems.) i'll be giving you more information as we get closer and on friday i will provide the address for her site.
if you like humor, i think you'll enjoy it. i've just read her post for friday if she doesn't change it. she's worked with several sample start pages. and she's taken part in the third estate sunday review all night sessions along with the 3rd gang, ci and me. i think she'll provide a new voice and i'm thrilled to know that another common ills community member is blogging. that's folding star over at a winding road, the gang at 3rd estate sunday review, me and now betty. as c.i. always says, the answer is more voices, not less. and i think you'll enjoy the way betty uses her voice.
for those who've e-mailed asking if i've backed off sex talk (i haven't) because jeff left monday, the answer is no. jeff was a lot of fun. i'm not searching for 'the 1' so don't mistake me for some carrie ann moss in the matrix!
i love my sex talk. but i don't tease about it. i'm not making a joke that leaves you hanging. if you read me talking about sex or men's bodies, you know that i've gone all the way - and then some!
from democracy now i'll steer you to this note on johnnie cochran's passing:
One of the best known lawyers in the United States has passed away. Johnnie Cochran died of a brain tumor at his home in Los Angeles.
He was 67. He is perhaps best-known for his work on the defense of O.J. Simpson during a murder trial in which Cochran uttered the famous quote "If it doesn't fit, you must acquit." His family released a statement that said "Certainly, Johnnie's career will be noted as one marked by "celebrity" cases and clientele. But he and his family were most proud of the work he did on behalf of those in the community. As Johnnie always said, "an injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere." It was his rallying cry as he worked to right many wrongs, and as he provided a voice to those who needed to be heard. He was deeply committed to helping and inspiring others- especially young people. His extraordinary law career will undoubtedly stand the test of time. But it was his devotion to his fellow human beings that will remain as his true legacy."
for more on him, go to democracy now and as c.i. sometimes notes it's listen, read or watch.
speaking of c.i. i wonder if he heard the start of the majority report tonight when sam seder spoke of a blog as a community. i really think the common ills holds the lock on that term. c.i. won't even refer to the people who visit regularly as 'readers' but instead always calls them 'members.' it sure is something to see an old school blog try to rip of the common ills.
and for those who don't know, tomorrow is unfiltered last's day. if you want to check out the cool chuck d or big brain rachel maddow 1 last time, this is it. in my heart of hearts, i like to think they'd throw something to the listeners and bring lizz winstead back for the final episode but i don't see that happening. they lied to their listeners about why lizz suddenly disappeared. they waited until last week to tell the loyal listeners that unfiltered was being cancelled. so i'm not seeing that they're suddenly going to do anything for the listeners at this late date.
friday is supposed to bring the start of jerry springer's show in the place of unfiltered and i believe the hounds of hell are released on the same day.
3/29/2005
examining ourselves
what a strange day this is. i've tried to blog forever and nothing posts. i thought it was just me but i checked with c.i. and found out the problem is blogger. something about the servers needing to be reset or something.
let me start by highlighting the third estate sunday review because i told myself i'd do that each day this week. so from 3rd estate, i'll highlight their blog spotlight ... joking! i'm the blog spotlight (my post on air america). but i will highlight their editorial:
That was the game plan. And on the left, people did tremendous work in exposing the hypocrisy of the Republican leadership, no question. But as the media continued to focus on it (all forms of media), the Republicans got what they wanted: one story dominating and drowning out all else.
You had a school shooting that was largely ignored which offended some people (including Native Americans). And while the story was spared the feeding frenzy and false reportingof Columbine, it also left many feeling that media interest depended on skin color.
When the efforts of Stephanie Tubbs-Jones were ignored, that also led some to raise the issue ofskin color.
Make no mistake, a lot of issues and stories got ignored. But also be aware that when you've covered, for instance, Ohio in relation to Barbara Boxer and you then ignore Stephanie Tubbs-Jones' continued fight on this important issue, people start to question why. And coming in the same week as the tragedy on the reservation, you begin to create even more questions in the minds of many.
Add in the voices of the disabled, voices that were not heard, and it often appeared the whole thing was intended to play to certain segment of the population, for a certain segment of the population and by a certain segment of the population.
The alternative media especially should be concerned because they are supposed to shed light to the stories that the mainstream doesn't touch. They are supposed to give voice to the subjects that otherwise would not be heard from. At a time when inclusion should be strived for, we went through a week of exclusion.
that's from "Editorial: There Must Have Been Nothing Else Going On In The World."
if you caught common ills community member keshawn's post this morning, you know that a lot of people did feel the focus on 1 story sidelined people of color:
I'm pissed off and so angry that when an African-American fights and keeps fighting, she gets ignored so the blog world can dog pile on one story.
She was fighting for you, she was fighting for me. She didn't have to be there. She had better things to do. If you think the damn hearing was going to be a white wash, don't you think she probably felt that too? Don't you think she might be a little more in the know since she's sitting in the Congress?
But she got her righteous self on down to the hearing. She kept fighting.
She didn't abandon us, we abandoned her. Kicked her to the side of the road without so much as a "good game."
Don't tell me this wasn't about skin color because I won't believe your words when your actions running up and down the court were all about passing to the teammates who looked just like you and ignoring the ones who didn't.
It's a white-white world and I'm starting to wonder if the blog world ain't the exact same as the mainstream and if the only people who matter enough for a dog pile story are the ones with white skins.
i'm not surprised by keshawn's feelings because i know a number of people who felt that way. a school shooting and a congress woman standing up for voting rights get no attention at all but
every 1 can go after the same story over and over.
did columbine get attention because it was a school shooting or because it involved a lot of white kids? that's a question a lot of people are wondering now.
i don't have a lot of hope for keshawn's post frankly. i think most in the blog world will ignore it. the people who covered the school shooting or stephanie tubbs-jones or both may think about it but they were already trying to be inclusive. the people who should be thinking about it are the 1s who will ignore it.
but i think every 1 should think about what keshawn is saying because he makes so many strong points. the web is supposed to be the alternative media. so why are they following what the corporate media follows?
if you're doing that and you're blogging, it's very easy to say 'i report on everything i hear or see or read.' you probably do. but the under-representation of people of color in the corporate media is nothing new. that's why, when you're looking for things to blog on, you need to go beyond just the obvious.
that includes me, by the way. don't think i exclude myself. i need to do a better job. i've highlighted democracy now but i could be doing a lot more.
so now's the time that we can take inventory of what stories we haven't noted and why that is?
it can be real easy to pat ourselves on the back or to ignore the points keshawn is making but i think we'd all benefit from an honest examination of ourselves.
i'm going to try to work towards being more inclusive here. that doesn't mean running or citing faux liberals like cynthia tucker who was 1 of the 1st to dog pile on cynthia mckinney. you'll see that keshawn's post had a large number running to cynthia mckinney. 'get me a black, pronto!'
but cynthia tucker is as mainstream as you can be. she knows she gets brownie points and pats on the back for turning her cannons on cynthia mckinney.
but i'm sure a number of people who linked to her today felt they were helping out. i hope leonard pitts didn't go after cynthia mckinney. he's a more centrist liberal but he's also a lot smarter than tucker. but it's about more than just linking to the same type of people that every 1 else links to.
so instead of being part of the crowd rushing to tucker, i went to davey d. over at davey's site i found this by adisa banjoko:
I’m tired of all these s-curl wearing, half baked Civil Rights leaders constantly blasting Hip Hop. They are like Black faced Bill Oreilly’s on Prozac spewing wackness constantly.
They spit venom at today’s youth and their reaction to being poor, uneducated and socially outcast. They don’t go after the BushAdministration. That is the COWARDS way out.
That has no trace of the courage, compassion or leadership ofthose before you. The Black Christian church, for whatever reason has always had it in for Hip Hop. Were it not for Michael Eric Dyson and Cornell West, REDEEMING the notions of the Black church and their approach to Hip Hop, virtually all would be lost.
[...]
Don’t tell me you don’t like 50, Dre, Em, Game, Lil John or whoever. Tell me who you do support?!? Whydon’t you champion Common, or Mos Def? I never hear you telling people to go get De La Soul or Zion I!! Don’t tell me the Hip Hop you hate, tell us the HipHop you are for!!!
maybe you agree, maybe you don't. maybe just the subject of hip-hop causes you to shut down.
but there's a point that's being made that we should all be able to relate to: don't just tell me who you don't like, tell me who you do like.
right or wrong, a lot of people felt that way about john kerry's campaign. they felt they knew what he stood against but not what he stood for. a lot of that has to do with the press but it also has to do with a cautious campaign. where was the message that we could all happily embrace?
that's a question we need to be asking.
i do sex & politics here as 'screeds' with 'attitude.' so looking at what adisa banjoko is saying and applying it just to what i write about, i can ask myself have i done enough to highlight what i like? (yes, i've raved over sexual partners but let's leave the sex aspect for now.)
i've noted and applauded janeane garofalo and randi rhodes and, more recently, laura flanders. i've attempted to warn everyone why the new republic is not a liberal magazine. but have i noted enough magazines that were liberal? i'm not sure that i have.
i will continue to address the issue of the new republic (and plan to do so tomorrow) but am i pointing people to magazines that might be speaking for them? i don't think i've honestly done a good job of that.
i'll pass on that the common ills has a post on the progressive today that outlines why it is a good magazine. i'll note that i enjoy the progressive too. but i don't know that i do enough about what i stand for as opposed to what i stand against? so that's something we all need to think about. i'll do it on this end and hopefully you will do it on your end.
but i'll close by saying i stand for peace and equality and that those used to be not just enlightened positions but also popular 1s. a great deal has been lost under the bully boy and maybe if we put our thinking caps on and work together we can find a way to turn back towards
a belief in community and public good. what do you think? let me know at sexandpoliticsandscreeds@yahoo.com.
let me start by highlighting the third estate sunday review because i told myself i'd do that each day this week. so from 3rd estate, i'll highlight their blog spotlight ... joking! i'm the blog spotlight (my post on air america). but i will highlight their editorial:
That was the game plan. And on the left, people did tremendous work in exposing the hypocrisy of the Republican leadership, no question. But as the media continued to focus on it (all forms of media), the Republicans got what they wanted: one story dominating and drowning out all else.
You had a school shooting that was largely ignored which offended some people (including Native Americans). And while the story was spared the feeding frenzy and false reportingof Columbine, it also left many feeling that media interest depended on skin color.
When the efforts of Stephanie Tubbs-Jones were ignored, that also led some to raise the issue ofskin color.
Make no mistake, a lot of issues and stories got ignored. But also be aware that when you've covered, for instance, Ohio in relation to Barbara Boxer and you then ignore Stephanie Tubbs-Jones' continued fight on this important issue, people start to question why. And coming in the same week as the tragedy on the reservation, you begin to create even more questions in the minds of many.
Add in the voices of the disabled, voices that were not heard, and it often appeared the whole thing was intended to play to certain segment of the population, for a certain segment of the population and by a certain segment of the population.
The alternative media especially should be concerned because they are supposed to shed light to the stories that the mainstream doesn't touch. They are supposed to give voice to the subjects that otherwise would not be heard from. At a time when inclusion should be strived for, we went through a week of exclusion.
that's from "Editorial: There Must Have Been Nothing Else Going On In The World."
if you caught common ills community member keshawn's post this morning, you know that a lot of people did feel the focus on 1 story sidelined people of color:
I'm pissed off and so angry that when an African-American fights and keeps fighting, she gets ignored so the blog world can dog pile on one story.
She was fighting for you, she was fighting for me. She didn't have to be there. She had better things to do. If you think the damn hearing was going to be a white wash, don't you think she probably felt that too? Don't you think she might be a little more in the know since she's sitting in the Congress?
But she got her righteous self on down to the hearing. She kept fighting.
She didn't abandon us, we abandoned her. Kicked her to the side of the road without so much as a "good game."
Don't tell me this wasn't about skin color because I won't believe your words when your actions running up and down the court were all about passing to the teammates who looked just like you and ignoring the ones who didn't.
It's a white-white world and I'm starting to wonder if the blog world ain't the exact same as the mainstream and if the only people who matter enough for a dog pile story are the ones with white skins.
i'm not surprised by keshawn's feelings because i know a number of people who felt that way. a school shooting and a congress woman standing up for voting rights get no attention at all but
every 1 can go after the same story over and over.
did columbine get attention because it was a school shooting or because it involved a lot of white kids? that's a question a lot of people are wondering now.
i don't have a lot of hope for keshawn's post frankly. i think most in the blog world will ignore it. the people who covered the school shooting or stephanie tubbs-jones or both may think about it but they were already trying to be inclusive. the people who should be thinking about it are the 1s who will ignore it.
but i think every 1 should think about what keshawn is saying because he makes so many strong points. the web is supposed to be the alternative media. so why are they following what the corporate media follows?
if you're doing that and you're blogging, it's very easy to say 'i report on everything i hear or see or read.' you probably do. but the under-representation of people of color in the corporate media is nothing new. that's why, when you're looking for things to blog on, you need to go beyond just the obvious.
that includes me, by the way. don't think i exclude myself. i need to do a better job. i've highlighted democracy now but i could be doing a lot more.
so now's the time that we can take inventory of what stories we haven't noted and why that is?
it can be real easy to pat ourselves on the back or to ignore the points keshawn is making but i think we'd all benefit from an honest examination of ourselves.
i'm going to try to work towards being more inclusive here. that doesn't mean running or citing faux liberals like cynthia tucker who was 1 of the 1st to dog pile on cynthia mckinney. you'll see that keshawn's post had a large number running to cynthia mckinney. 'get me a black, pronto!'
but cynthia tucker is as mainstream as you can be. she knows she gets brownie points and pats on the back for turning her cannons on cynthia mckinney.
but i'm sure a number of people who linked to her today felt they were helping out. i hope leonard pitts didn't go after cynthia mckinney. he's a more centrist liberal but he's also a lot smarter than tucker. but it's about more than just linking to the same type of people that every 1 else links to.
so instead of being part of the crowd rushing to tucker, i went to davey d. over at davey's site i found this by adisa banjoko:
I’m tired of all these s-curl wearing, half baked Civil Rights leaders constantly blasting Hip Hop. They are like Black faced Bill Oreilly’s on Prozac spewing wackness constantly.
They spit venom at today’s youth and their reaction to being poor, uneducated and socially outcast. They don’t go after the BushAdministration. That is the COWARDS way out.
That has no trace of the courage, compassion or leadership ofthose before you. The Black Christian church, for whatever reason has always had it in for Hip Hop. Were it not for Michael Eric Dyson and Cornell West, REDEEMING the notions of the Black church and their approach to Hip Hop, virtually all would be lost.
[...]
Don’t tell me you don’t like 50, Dre, Em, Game, Lil John or whoever. Tell me who you do support?!? Whydon’t you champion Common, or Mos Def? I never hear you telling people to go get De La Soul or Zion I!! Don’t tell me the Hip Hop you hate, tell us the HipHop you are for!!!
maybe you agree, maybe you don't. maybe just the subject of hip-hop causes you to shut down.
but there's a point that's being made that we should all be able to relate to: don't just tell me who you don't like, tell me who you do like.
right or wrong, a lot of people felt that way about john kerry's campaign. they felt they knew what he stood against but not what he stood for. a lot of that has to do with the press but it also has to do with a cautious campaign. where was the message that we could all happily embrace?
that's a question we need to be asking.
i do sex & politics here as 'screeds' with 'attitude.' so looking at what adisa banjoko is saying and applying it just to what i write about, i can ask myself have i done enough to highlight what i like? (yes, i've raved over sexual partners but let's leave the sex aspect for now.)
i've noted and applauded janeane garofalo and randi rhodes and, more recently, laura flanders. i've attempted to warn everyone why the new republic is not a liberal magazine. but have i noted enough magazines that were liberal? i'm not sure that i have.
i will continue to address the issue of the new republic (and plan to do so tomorrow) but am i pointing people to magazines that might be speaking for them? i don't think i've honestly done a good job of that.
i'll pass on that the common ills has a post on the progressive today that outlines why it is a good magazine. i'll note that i enjoy the progressive too. but i don't know that i do enough about what i stand for as opposed to what i stand against? so that's something we all need to think about. i'll do it on this end and hopefully you will do it on your end.
but i'll close by saying i stand for peace and equality and that those used to be not just enlightened positions but also popular 1s. a great deal has been lost under the bully boy and maybe if we put our thinking caps on and work together we can find a way to turn back towards
a belief in community and public good. what do you think? let me know at sexandpoliticsandscreeds@yahoo.com.
3/28/2005
the media is blind to the realities on the ground in iraq
today, i want to direct you to the third estate sunday review's "Under-reported stores from last week: feat: Ron (Why Are We Back in Iraq?), Pam (Big Brass Blog) and Folding Star (A Winding Road)." that's a great story/conference on stories the mainstream media missed last week while they obsessed over only 1 story.
besides the people mentioned in the title, you'll hear 3rd estate's picks, common ills community member betty's picks, c.i.'s picks and my picks.
i want to note a pick from the 3rd estate because i think it's pretty important. it's chris anderson's 'The Media: Blind In Iraq' from nyc indymedia. kara brought this story up this morning over at the common ills and that made me think about how i think the story is important but i don't believe i've done much to help get it out.
so here's a section of 'the media: blind in iraq' and the entire thing is worth reading:
All in all, a dramatic attack that underscored the growing competence of US-trained Iraqi security forces, the increasing isolation of the insurgency, and the presence of foregin fighters in Iraq. In short, an attack that reinforced everything the United States wanted to say about the current situation in Iraq.
Which is probably why it never happened. Or at least, why it didn't happen the way we were told it happened.
Burdened by the dangers of reporting in Iraq, unofficial military censorship, and the conventions of foreign correspondence early reports about the "Battle at Lake Thanthar" were compiled almost entirely from briefings given by Iraqi and US government officials. The reports, in the NY Times, the AP, and elsewhere emphasized the high insurgent death toll, the importance of Iraqi civilian tips, the presence of foreign fighters, the large ammount of equipment at the camp, and the fact that insurgents that tried to escape in boats across the lake were killed.
[...]
So what's actually going on in Iraq? As we've noted on this page a number of times already, no one has any idea. Certainly not the journalists assigned to report there. As Juan Cole puts it:"American news organizations such as CNN refuse to report news that is only carried by AFP, because they consider it to have inadequate journalistic quality-control. But reports like this one are not being done by US wire services in Iraq, and if we don't take AFP seriously, we essentially may as well just believe whatever Interior Minister Falah al-Naqib and the Pentagon claim.
i really recommend that you read that article because we are not getting the truth about iraq. we didn't before the war and we still aren't.
this is a short entry and there may be more later tonight or not. i've going out to eat and after i have to drop jeff off at the airport.
besides the people mentioned in the title, you'll hear 3rd estate's picks, common ills community member betty's picks, c.i.'s picks and my picks.
i want to note a pick from the 3rd estate because i think it's pretty important. it's chris anderson's 'The Media: Blind In Iraq' from nyc indymedia. kara brought this story up this morning over at the common ills and that made me think about how i think the story is important but i don't believe i've done much to help get it out.
so here's a section of 'the media: blind in iraq' and the entire thing is worth reading:
All in all, a dramatic attack that underscored the growing competence of US-trained Iraqi security forces, the increasing isolation of the insurgency, and the presence of foregin fighters in Iraq. In short, an attack that reinforced everything the United States wanted to say about the current situation in Iraq.
Which is probably why it never happened. Or at least, why it didn't happen the way we were told it happened.
Burdened by the dangers of reporting in Iraq, unofficial military censorship, and the conventions of foreign correspondence early reports about the "Battle at Lake Thanthar" were compiled almost entirely from briefings given by Iraqi and US government officials. The reports, in the NY Times, the AP, and elsewhere emphasized the high insurgent death toll, the importance of Iraqi civilian tips, the presence of foreign fighters, the large ammount of equipment at the camp, and the fact that insurgents that tried to escape in boats across the lake were killed.
[...]
So what's actually going on in Iraq? As we've noted on this page a number of times already, no one has any idea. Certainly not the journalists assigned to report there. As Juan Cole puts it:"American news organizations such as CNN refuse to report news that is only carried by AFP, because they consider it to have inadequate journalistic quality-control. But reports like this one are not being done by US wire services in Iraq, and if we don't take AFP seriously, we essentially may as well just believe whatever Interior Minister Falah al-Naqib and the Pentagon claim.
i really recommend that you read that article because we are not getting the truth about iraq. we didn't before the war and we still aren't.
this is a short entry and there may be more later tonight or not. i've going out to eat and after i have to drop jeff off at the airport.
3/27/2005
spotlighting the good: laura flanders, steve rosenfeld, stephanie tubbs-jones, juanita millender-mcdonald, ava & c.i. and janeane garofalo
thank god for c.i. over at the common ills. there are days when i can't even stomach the main section of the new york times and go to the common ills for a summary. this was 1 of those days.
i hope people are also listening to the laura flanders show on air america because that's a strong show. tonight they covered the ohio congressional committee taking testimony in ohio and c.i.'s already got a post on that full of quotes so go there.
but my favorite part was the same as laura flanders' favorite part. when stephanie tubbs-jones told kenneth blackwell that if he didn't like her questions he could 'haul butt' and 'go on, see you.'
people said things like 'oh nothing will happen.' that wasn't the point of needing ohio coverage. the point was it was news and we needed to be informed. the point was that stephanie tubbs-jones (who's not even on the committee) was taking a brave stand and unless we're spineless cowards, we should be paying attention and supporting her.
i'll also say 'way to go' to juanita millender-mcdonald. and if i can be crude, and any 1 coming to this site knows that i can and usually am, why is it that all the democrats in congress that have balls seem to be women? barbara boxer, maxine waters, stephanie tubbs-jones, cynthia mckinney, juanita millender-mcdonald . . . now there are a few brave men in congress but they're mainly in the house and if you want to be really honest about it, male or female, take away barbara boxer, russ feingold, ted kennedy and robert byrd and all the bravery is coming mainly from the black caucus out of the house.
i'll also take a moment to note 1 story from the third estate sunday review's latest edition and i'll try to do that at least once a week. since every 1's e-mailing about the tv review that ava and c.i. did of smallville, i'll note that they review john stamos's jake in progress.
From the hype, we were cued to expect a male version of Sex in the City, full of snappy remarks and sex driven plots. But then . . . we watched.
The show is all tease. We're not just saying that they cut away from the sex scenes because we weren't expecting to see Stamos and assorted others flashing the rears at the camera. (And outside of Wendie Malick, no one in the cast should even consider doing that -- see notes at the end on Stamos' body.) But we were expecting that the show would be about sex.
And it really wasn't. Jake is supposed to be a sex machine. And we get a lot of sex talk. A lot of openings. But no closure. No sealing the deal. Talk, talk, talk. And it's not locker room talk. This is like eavesdropping on the high school chess club: they'd really, really like to have sex, but they never really, really get to.
color me disappointed, i had so many hopes for that show.
they mention me in the review so of course i'll quote that. i have no problems with being self-referential!
Rebecca has written about how to make Jake in Progress a hit (before the show aired) and she wanted us to answer this important question: How much flesh does Stamos show?
Rebecca, not much. In one scene (when he wakes up by the hot tub the next morning and the woman is gone), you get to see his chest. Otherwise, if he's in bed with a woman (talking!) you see his shoulders and her shoulders. (It's like sex between those big doll heads you could style the hair on.) His sleepware is a t-shirt and what appears to be silk pants or possibly shiny sweat pants. So your hopes that he'd be running around in a pair of BVDs, consider those dashed.
The body itself isn't much to note. That might be why you get so many shoulder shots. His pecs are like late 80s Richard Gere pecs -- on the verge of losing all tone and emerging with the fold lines that dominated so much of Gere's bare chest acting in the 90s. We like to call that When Pillow Pecs Turn Into Fold Out Sofas. (You're welcome to come up with your own classification.)
i love that, pillow pecs turn into fold out sofas. richard gere is so hot and then he takes off his shirt and those former pillow pecs just sort of slide down his chest now. if the show's not doing shots of john stamos in bvds, believe me, it's not worth watching and will soon be cancelled.
ava and c.i. are astute, delightful and so damn funny. it's like printed stand up.
and speaking of stand up, since i didn't have to trudge through the main section of the paper, i was able to enjoy other parts. let me put you wise to the fact that the incredible janeane garofalo has a profile in the arts section. janeane's a stand up woman both in the sense that she does stand up and in the sense that she stands up for what she believes in. she's funny and smart and, no matter what she says, she's gorgeous. but i do wonder why the paper ran two photos of her that were so old. she stopped bleaching her hair blonde forever ago. i didn't care for the blonde hair but even with it, she was gorgeous. if you haven't checked out the majority report yet, do so for janeane because she's the real deal.
i hope people are also listening to the laura flanders show on air america because that's a strong show. tonight they covered the ohio congressional committee taking testimony in ohio and c.i.'s already got a post on that full of quotes so go there.
but my favorite part was the same as laura flanders' favorite part. when stephanie tubbs-jones told kenneth blackwell that if he didn't like her questions he could 'haul butt' and 'go on, see you.'
people said things like 'oh nothing will happen.' that wasn't the point of needing ohio coverage. the point was it was news and we needed to be informed. the point was that stephanie tubbs-jones (who's not even on the committee) was taking a brave stand and unless we're spineless cowards, we should be paying attention and supporting her.
i'll also say 'way to go' to juanita millender-mcdonald. and if i can be crude, and any 1 coming to this site knows that i can and usually am, why is it that all the democrats in congress that have balls seem to be women? barbara boxer, maxine waters, stephanie tubbs-jones, cynthia mckinney, juanita millender-mcdonald . . . now there are a few brave men in congress but they're mainly in the house and if you want to be really honest about it, male or female, take away barbara boxer, russ feingold, ted kennedy and robert byrd and all the bravery is coming mainly from the black caucus out of the house.
i'll also take a moment to note 1 story from the third estate sunday review's latest edition and i'll try to do that at least once a week. since every 1's e-mailing about the tv review that ava and c.i. did of smallville, i'll note that they review john stamos's jake in progress.
From the hype, we were cued to expect a male version of Sex in the City, full of snappy remarks and sex driven plots. But then . . . we watched.
The show is all tease. We're not just saying that they cut away from the sex scenes because we weren't expecting to see Stamos and assorted others flashing the rears at the camera. (And outside of Wendie Malick, no one in the cast should even consider doing that -- see notes at the end on Stamos' body.) But we were expecting that the show would be about sex.
And it really wasn't. Jake is supposed to be a sex machine. And we get a lot of sex talk. A lot of openings. But no closure. No sealing the deal. Talk, talk, talk. And it's not locker room talk. This is like eavesdropping on the high school chess club: they'd really, really like to have sex, but they never really, really get to.
color me disappointed, i had so many hopes for that show.
they mention me in the review so of course i'll quote that. i have no problems with being self-referential!
Rebecca has written about how to make Jake in Progress a hit (before the show aired) and she wanted us to answer this important question: How much flesh does Stamos show?
Rebecca, not much. In one scene (when he wakes up by the hot tub the next morning and the woman is gone), you get to see his chest. Otherwise, if he's in bed with a woman (talking!) you see his shoulders and her shoulders. (It's like sex between those big doll heads you could style the hair on.) His sleepware is a t-shirt and what appears to be silk pants or possibly shiny sweat pants. So your hopes that he'd be running around in a pair of BVDs, consider those dashed.
The body itself isn't much to note. That might be why you get so many shoulder shots. His pecs are like late 80s Richard Gere pecs -- on the verge of losing all tone and emerging with the fold lines that dominated so much of Gere's bare chest acting in the 90s. We like to call that When Pillow Pecs Turn Into Fold Out Sofas. (You're welcome to come up with your own classification.)
i love that, pillow pecs turn into fold out sofas. richard gere is so hot and then he takes off his shirt and those former pillow pecs just sort of slide down his chest now. if the show's not doing shots of john stamos in bvds, believe me, it's not worth watching and will soon be cancelled.
ava and c.i. are astute, delightful and so damn funny. it's like printed stand up.
and speaking of stand up, since i didn't have to trudge through the main section of the paper, i was able to enjoy other parts. let me put you wise to the fact that the incredible janeane garofalo has a profile in the arts section. janeane's a stand up woman both in the sense that she does stand up and in the sense that she stands up for what she believes in. she's funny and smart and, no matter what she says, she's gorgeous. but i do wonder why the paper ran two photos of her that were so old. she stopped bleaching her hair blonde forever ago. i didn't care for the blonde hair but even with it, she was gorgeous. if you haven't checked out the majority report yet, do so for janeane because she's the real deal.
working with the third estate sunday review
we're all on a break from the third estate sunday review and i wanted to take a moment to write a quick note so i don't wake up tomorrow to 'are you alive' e-mails.
ava and c.i. have a very funny review of john stamos's new show jake in progress. i am mentioned in it and since i blogged on that show back at the first of march, i'll go ahead and tell you, mr. stamos is keeping the skin covered. which is sad because i think a lot of people would watch if he was flaunting the bod. the review isn't posted yet and i finished reading it right before we all went on break.
in addition, there's a feature we're working on where people will be weighing in on stories that did not get traction or enough traction last week. hopefully that will be of interest to a few people who read at this site. if you're not familiar with the third estate sunday review, you should really check them out. they publish once a week on sundays.
i'm not sure i highlighted the piece that we all worked on last week. in case i didn't, background, the five who make up the third estate (jim, jess, ava, ty and dona) along with c.i., common ills community member betty and myself all went to our various rallies and interviewed people asking them 1 question: why are you here?
from all those voices, we published 81 explaining why the rallies were important to them. we thought that would be a strong feature and it is. but i think we're all a little surprised by how the rallies were so ignored by the mainstream press.
here's one voice of the eighty-one:
Ira, 62: "I'm here to say no to the occupation. And I'm really impressed with the turnout and with all the young faces I'm seeing because I wasn't expecting them. You got the prison scandal, you got the torture, you got the rapes, you got a scandal every other week and nothing seems to lead to any outrage. Why do I think that is? Because Bushy got some Madison avenue wiz to come up with a market slogan: 'support the troops.' And everyone keeps repeating that bullshit slogan. And it just shuts down debate, discussion and awareness. When I was a kid, you'd have seen a group of us screaming back, 'Fuck no!' but you don't get that today. And we're all managed and manipulated. And the extreme becomes 'Oh that's awful . . . but I support the troops.' And that shuts down any thought a person might have. In the 60s, you had a range of opinion and a range of people speaking out and being heard. But the range now is basically two voices: 'I support the troops and the president is right!' and 'I'm shocked that whatever happened happened but I support the troops.' That's it. No one can talk about anything for more than three minutes without piping off, 'I support the troops.' It's disgusting to see how well this war has been marketed from the lead up to the occupation."
ava and c.i. have a very funny review of john stamos's new show jake in progress. i am mentioned in it and since i blogged on that show back at the first of march, i'll go ahead and tell you, mr. stamos is keeping the skin covered. which is sad because i think a lot of people would watch if he was flaunting the bod. the review isn't posted yet and i finished reading it right before we all went on break.
in addition, there's a feature we're working on where people will be weighing in on stories that did not get traction or enough traction last week. hopefully that will be of interest to a few people who read at this site. if you're not familiar with the third estate sunday review, you should really check them out. they publish once a week on sundays.
i'm not sure i highlighted the piece that we all worked on last week. in case i didn't, background, the five who make up the third estate (jim, jess, ava, ty and dona) along with c.i., common ills community member betty and myself all went to our various rallies and interviewed people asking them 1 question: why are you here?
from all those voices, we published 81 explaining why the rallies were important to them. we thought that would be a strong feature and it is. but i think we're all a little surprised by how the rallies were so ignored by the mainstream press.
here's one voice of the eighty-one:
Ira, 62: "I'm here to say no to the occupation. And I'm really impressed with the turnout and with all the young faces I'm seeing because I wasn't expecting them. You got the prison scandal, you got the torture, you got the rapes, you got a scandal every other week and nothing seems to lead to any outrage. Why do I think that is? Because Bushy got some Madison avenue wiz to come up with a market slogan: 'support the troops.' And everyone keeps repeating that bullshit slogan. And it just shuts down debate, discussion and awareness. When I was a kid, you'd have seen a group of us screaming back, 'Fuck no!' but you don't get that today. And we're all managed and manipulated. And the extreme becomes 'Oh that's awful . . . but I support the troops.' And that shuts down any thought a person might have. In the 60s, you had a range of opinion and a range of people speaking out and being heard. But the range now is basically two voices: 'I support the troops and the president is right!' and 'I'm shocked that whatever happened happened but I support the troops.' That's it. No one can talk about anything for more than three minutes without piping off, 'I support the troops.' It's disgusting to see how well this war has been marketed from the lead up to the occupation."
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