a reader e-mails 'i love your site but damn if it doesn't depress me! i come here with conventional wisdom about the new republic and leave feeling informed but depressed that for so many years the new republic has been able to pass itself off as left.'
cheer up, you're informed. and i linked to other sites. i didn't break that. it's been out there for years. but what i do have is strong sexual desires and a potty mouth and i can pull people in here that do care about the world but want to find something a little lighter.
i love a lot of sites and i learn so much.
iddybud, why are we back in iraq, buzzflash, third estate sunday review, common ills, the daily howler, a winding road, editor's cut, long, thin cock that ari knows how to use and so much more. i learn a great deal from them.
and i think they are all approachable. buzzflash's editorials and reader's contributions walk you through providing you all the information you need. iddybud has common sense and knows how to boil it down each time so that if you're just wandering into the topic, you know what's going on.
but there are a lot of sites that are a little too insider-ish and you go there and it's like turning on passions after my friend terry has been talking it up for over a year and i'm watching it and thinking 'who's that?' or 'wait, what are those two talking about? who slept with who?'
a lot of times it's like you're trying to start a new book but the first page reads like the start of the final chapter and you're left scratching your head, feeling uninformed and stupid and you think, 'i don't need this kind of negativity!' because it makes you feel like you are an idiot.
the news can be depressing. obviously. and i'm not trying to talk any 1 into understanding the details of some complex economic policy. (nor do i pretend i grasp that stuff.)
and i know if things get too heavy, i can wake you back up with sex.
for instance, bush's poll numbers are dipping. in some cases they've dropped down to 43% (cbs poll). now if i were to then explain the poll to you in great detail and lose you or if i was walking you through some basics on al franken like yesterday, i could then insert something to wake every 1 up.
like this. my friend thereza had the morning off and ended up visiting this morning. now thereza is my friend who's just broken up with her longterm girlfriend. i didn't know thereza was coming over. 1 moment, i'm in the kitchen dealing with the coffee maker, doing a neck roll to work out the kinks when thereza steps in through the back door.
she's been taking the breakup pretty hard so it was great to see her in a good mood and she entered talking, as joan rivers might say. telling me how things were turning around, she was done crying, and so on. i'm grabbing her a mug from the cabinet and nodding thinking as soon as she takes a breath, i'll explain that i have overnight company.
i never get the chance because she falls silent and is staring over my shoulder. i look over and there's jeff standing there, face a bright shade of red and completely nude because who dresses for a shower, right?
he's just standing there frozen. finally he backs out with apologies and thereza starts laughing her butt off.
i met jeff last week at the protests.
thereza wants to talk about 1 thing. his bush. he's got a tangle of pubes like you wouldn't believe. and they're so soft you'd think he shampooed and conditioned them. but they are intense which is funny because he's really not hairy anywhere else. but he's got this long tangle of dense, dark pubes and the juxtapositon of that with the smoothness elsewhere excites me.
so after we have a chuckle over that, thereza asks why i stopped writing about my cornhusker.
i still love my cornhusker and my e-mail buddy sherry and i would duel to the end over him.
but he's just not in the news.
thereza starts swapping hot bods with me and i toss out christian parenti and dahr jamail, of course, and she tosses out a few before noting sandra bullock which just shocks me.
i like sandra. she's funny onscreen and seems level headed. but thereza dismisses ashanti as sexy because she thinks ashanti's ankles are too thick. now sandra's pretty, funny and goofy.
but when you're down to examining women's ankles, it just doesn't seem like a woman who has to be near forty or just over is going to hit your list unless she's some sort of work out queen.
but thereza says sandra's 'fluffiness' is exactly what she finds sexy about her.
live and learn, huh? and that's not knocking sandra. she's cute and funny. i just wouldn't have picked her for a dream date meet up with thereza because thereza's standards can be so demanding. she once blew off a dead ringer for foxy brown because she thought the lookalike was wearing avon perfume and didn't see herself rolling around in the sheets with any woman who would use avon products.
and on the subject of live and learn i'll pass on something from ms. magazine. this is an article called 'The Fuck-You 50s: We’re loud, proud and 37 million strong' by suzanne braun levine. and i love the title.
here's a part of the article that i really loved:
Saving the world may not be what most of us have in mind for the next chapter in our lives, yet the journey we are on -- mapping our Second Adulthood -- is taking us from a most intimate inquiry outward to the way we express ourselves in the world, the way we connect with other individuals and generations, and ultimately to the impact we can have on society.
We 37 million women in our late 40s, 50s and 60s are part of a sea of change that can lift a fleet of boats, not just our own. But we are only just beginning to become aware of the tidal wave we represent. Not only are we gaining strength both as individuals and as a group, but our influence is compounded by our attitude.
"Women get more radical with age," Gloria Steinem frequently points out, because for one thing, we have had more years of experience coming up against false assumptions about what we are capable of, and for another, we have the daring that comes with what I call "the fuck-you 50s"
to defy those barriers.
Economists, politicians, corporate executives, sociologists and medical researchers are waking up to the thundering herd of "ponies and donkeys" headed their way. And we should be too.
to me, that's a really positive note. if you think about how we're lied to repeatedly by the mainstream media with the lie that the country has turned more and more conservative,
it's just nice to know that women will keep that from happening. not just now, but always because as we grow older and hit those 'fuck you 50s' (i really do love that term) we're going to worry less and less about so many things that we obsess over right now.
we talked about this, thereza, a now dressed jeff and i, after we had our coffee while watching democracy now. and we talked about democracy now and how amazing it was to be able to turn on the tv and watch actual news.
so for the reader who wrote in that she left informed but depressed, there's two positives: women grow more radical with age and democracy now provides real news you can use.
3/24/2005
it's all over now, baby blue
and so it ends.
don't say i didn't warn you.
unfiltered is no more.
1 pro-choice feminist woman, 1 braniac lesbian (both white) and 1 african-american male with humor and common sense were just too much diversity for the new clear channel carried air america.
how 'too much?'
three times 'too much.'
which is why on april 1st, the fool's day, jerry springer's show will fill the spot and unfiltered willbe no more.
jerry! jerry! jerry!
well ... it's a different audience.
another old white guy with a moon face and a short neck that screams for a buzz cut but, like al franken, no 1's ever had the nerve to point out that longish hair doesn't work with what either al or jerry has got.
the florence henderson flip in the back ain't working either. hey boys, if julia roberts couldn't revive that look, you don't stand a chance.
but there are differences.
for instance jerry is blonde and al is brunette. also jerry is thin-ish and al was screaming 'supersize this!' in his diapers.
class wise, al fancies that he has some while jerry suffers from no such illusion.
jerry's more politically honest than al but how long that will last is anyone's guess.
also any 1's guess is how long the women left will be able to hang on.
for instance, if ed shultz could get randi rhodes' ratings, she would already be gone -- as al is rumored to wish she was.
randi does radio better than al so he'll have to keep dreaming.
what's in store folks? a dick measuring contest between al and springer. nothing funnier than watching 2 nerds try to jock-it-up. laughs will be plentiful, even if not intentional.
on air? laura flanders and janeane garofalo may prove to be too independent for the so-called left network.
janeane and laura share a key feature besides 2 X chromosones - they're independent thinkers.
you think the network that cancels unfiltered really wants independent thought from women?
whose fault is it?
well it's pretty obvious.
but guess what, if you didn't e-mail air america to protest when lizz winstead was 'disappeared,'
or if you didn't call them, or if you didn't sign the petition to bring her back, or if you didn't stop listening online, if you didn't do 1 of those things (just 1) you are at fault too.
when congress wants to push through some objectionable piece of legislation, we have to flood them with calls, e-mails and letters to get them to listen to the people who elected them.
and it was the same thing there. i gave you guarded warnings as did c.i. i said lizz was treated horribly and when i have to stick up for her, you know it was horrible. we knew what was coming. i had e-mailed c.i. tuesday and got an e-mail back that same day saying do not miss unfiltered thursday. then yesterday c.i. e-mailed a breaking story from associated press about how jerry springer was coming to air america.
we knew. my friend elaine knew.
two of my e-mail buds knew too: martha and maria. they knew. they and others took it the unfiltered blog and elsewhere to say 'people get angry.' but you had liars on the unfiltered blog and elsewhere. not just idiots but flat out liars.
the 1s elaine didn't think were real people but ringers sent in by air america to hush the topic of the disappearing of lizz.
and what did they do?
they'd go online and say stupid things. they'd spread rumors that they "heard" or that they "knew" lizz winstead was sick. and that we shouldn't talk about her being gone because she is sick and needs her privacy.
that was a lie. people who repeated it lied to you.
when that lie started being fought back on the unfiltered blog, the liars tried a new tactic:
lizz likes to create a show and then leave. that's what she did with the daily show, they would lie. that is not what happened with the daily show and that is not what happened with unfiltered.
those people lied. they are liars. they are full of shit liars. liars that can kiss my ass.
they manipulated people with false information.
scared them that lizz had cancer.
nothing was off limits as they tried to get people to stop talking about how lizz was gone.
they had no shame.
were they ringers for air america? who knows. but they certainly spread lies to push an agenda of silence.
and people who fell for it, even when others on that blog would say, 'that's a lie!' well it's your fault.
because if the huge uproar that lizz winstead deserved had happened, they would have had to rethink the push to bring another male on because some were worried that 2 (white) women and a black man couldn't reach audiences.
what audiences?
white male audiences.
if you're a female, wake up. air america just spat on you.
they don't want you as a morning listener.
they want males. white males.
and they think they can get them by putting on pudgy, middle-aged men.
so if you're a woman with any self-respect, don't listen to that network when al and jerry are on in the morning. turn on randi when she comes on. stay for janeane. stay for malloy who doesn't do al's sexist jokes but actually respects women. on the weekends, listen to laura. listen to marty and bobby and mike.
but don't listen to this bullshit that's geared for white males.
if you're an african-american male, skip the bullshit of jerry and al. chuck d got served his walking papers. 2 black males on during the day was 2 too many.
if you're a male of any color, show some self-respect.
and if you're a white male who cares about women and people of color, just say no to al and jerry.
martha sent me a wonderful e-mail explaining how offensive this was to her as an african-american and a woman.
she also included a parody of the asshole liars who tried to hush the talk of lizz. this is what she sees as the blog on march 31st, the last day unfiltered airs:
**blue: come on guys, we have to do what air america wants. we have no ideas or thoughts of our own. and you just go with the flow.
swing*****girl: absolutely. look people corporationsneed to do what they think is best! that's what this country is all about so just back off. yes, i loved rachel and i hope i hear her or see her again somewhere. but if this is what air america wants, hey i take my marching orders with a smile.
NOTDANNYGOLDBERG: swing*****girl and **blue, you are both so right! and besides, i hear rachel is really sick and doesn't want to talk about it.
**blue: that's right! what if 1 of you was sick? would you want the whole world to know? quit talking about the end of unfiltered! rachel is sick! you aren't helping her! she wants us to stop talking about this!
swing*****girl: that is so true. in fact i heard from a friend that lizz winstead wanted that too.
NOTDANNYGOLDBERG: i know that's what lizz would want to.
swing*****girl: i am not about the person! i am about the politic! and i will listen to unfiltered without lizz. i will listen to it with just rachel. because it is about the show! and now that the show is no more it is about the hour! so i will listen without questions or complaints to this three hour block of air time no matter who they put on!
**blue: here here swing*****girl!
read that because it's damn funny. and it's also very true.
so if you see conversations like that, if you're at an air america blog and you see that sort of shit,
know you're dealing with liars. know you're dealing with people attempting to strip you of your power.
if the liars hadn't spread (for over a week) the lie that lizz was sick and that's why she wasn't on the show, if they hadn't done that, the outrage would have built fairly quick.
instead they clamped down on the outrage by lying. they lied to you. they made you think lizz had cancer. they made you think if you objected or spoke about lizz being gone, you were making lizz's life harder.
they fucking lied.
and when enough people started calling them on that lie (and some called them right off -- a few brave voices), suddenly they pushed the lie that lizz likes to create something and once it's started, she likes to leave.
that was a lie as well.
you were lied to. you were lied to because they wanted to quiet you.
if you had been enraged and flooding them with complaints, they would have had to have done something. elaine doesn't think it would have brought lizz back. she does think it would have gotten rachel a female co-host and it would have meant that they'd have to figure out a way to keep unfiltered on the schedule.
right now, the liars are out there lying to you again. they're telling you that chuck d and rachel are going to be jerry springer's co-hosts.
they're saying 'just wait guys, you'll see.'
they are playing you for a fool. they did it before. don't fall for this shit again.
what happened to lizz winstead was disgusting.
she helped create that network, not just unfiltered, not just her own show. she was there before the network had even shored up the hosts. she was there figuring out how to make al's program more interesting, for instance. (randi rhodes's program was all randi. she was already doing it and doing it damn well.)
the network wouldn't have lasted a year without lizz winstead's contributions. and the thanks she gets is that on the one year anniversary of unfiltered (april 1st) the show will no longer be on.
now if you scream right now, they might find rachel a slot on the weekend.
that's up to you.
but don't fool yourself that the network's inclusive.
a woman can play mommy and let al be the bad boy. a woman can be the patricia heaton of the network. but that's all they want.
they didn't promote randi who was already on air for years and successful in the markets her show aired in. they shoved al franken down your throat.
that would be the big titty baby who 'stood up' to bill o'reilly on c-span. remember that? when big bad al started whining and his voice was breaking and he was about to cry like a little titty baby.
and i've told you to look at al's guests. i've told you to ask why you have those people from the american enterprise institue on. you know the one, i mean. al's friend norm. what the fuck is he doing on the network?
or what the fuck are all those other 'centrists' doing on al's show.
al has lost his sense of humor. he had 1. it was sexist and could be off putting. but he had 1.
now he just wants to gloat that arafat's dead. and he wants to do that over and over.
he gave ronnie reagan a pass during the week long is-he-still-dead reporting. he got offended when the great greg palast attempted to bring up the reality of reagan. he couldn't even let jeremy glick speak when glick was on.
al's a loser. he's a fat fucking loser. some of you 1st noticed it when he interviewed jesse helms's biracial daughter. an elderly woman whom al thought it was appropriate to make cracks about where her mother had sex - the garden or the kitchen? that wasn't tasteful and it wasn't funny.
but you've seen the hate spewed constantly at arafat. and you've heard him present his view of the peace process as the only view. over and over.
unfiltered is gone. and with it, 3 people who would challenge the democratic party's rush to the right. and you're left with al franken, the self-proclaimed dlc liberal. as though there's anything liberal about the dlc.
After fellow panelist Molly Ivins disabused O'Reilly's claims that she was a "liberal," Franken declared, "Unlike Molly, I am a liberal," adding curiously "I'm a DLC Democrat." Curious, because anyone who knows the centrist, pro-business Democratic Leadership Council knows that it has nothing to do with being "liberal" (in the generally accepted definition of that word; if Franken were to say he was a neoliberal, his identification with the DLC would make perfect sense).
that's from "Al Franken and Al-Shifa: The Age of Sacred Apologies" by tom gorman.
it appeared in counterpunch. and for the record, molly ivins sees herself as a progressive.
one more quote to clue you in on al, from tom gorman's article:
Franken, as well as his fans, need to be extremely careful of falling into the "enemy of my enemy is my friend" mentality that can ally good people with the lesser of two evils. Witness this Fox News-worthy Franken quote from the August 25 edition of CNN's Crossfire: "I think the American armed services did a damned good job in Iraq and a damned good job in Afghanistan, frankly."
that's the hero of the left. that's the man being set up as our savior. the man who turned titty baby when confronting o'reilly. and he's going to lead us to the promised land?
don't say i didn't warn you.
unfiltered is no more.
1 pro-choice feminist woman, 1 braniac lesbian (both white) and 1 african-american male with humor and common sense were just too much diversity for the new clear channel carried air america.
how 'too much?'
three times 'too much.'
which is why on april 1st, the fool's day, jerry springer's show will fill the spot and unfiltered willbe no more.
jerry! jerry! jerry!
well ... it's a different audience.
another old white guy with a moon face and a short neck that screams for a buzz cut but, like al franken, no 1's ever had the nerve to point out that longish hair doesn't work with what either al or jerry has got.
the florence henderson flip in the back ain't working either. hey boys, if julia roberts couldn't revive that look, you don't stand a chance.
but there are differences.
for instance jerry is blonde and al is brunette. also jerry is thin-ish and al was screaming 'supersize this!' in his diapers.
class wise, al fancies that he has some while jerry suffers from no such illusion.
jerry's more politically honest than al but how long that will last is anyone's guess.
also any 1's guess is how long the women left will be able to hang on.
for instance, if ed shultz could get randi rhodes' ratings, she would already be gone -- as al is rumored to wish she was.
randi does radio better than al so he'll have to keep dreaming.
what's in store folks? a dick measuring contest between al and springer. nothing funnier than watching 2 nerds try to jock-it-up. laughs will be plentiful, even if not intentional.
on air? laura flanders and janeane garofalo may prove to be too independent for the so-called left network.
janeane and laura share a key feature besides 2 X chromosones - they're independent thinkers.
you think the network that cancels unfiltered really wants independent thought from women?
whose fault is it?
well it's pretty obvious.
but guess what, if you didn't e-mail air america to protest when lizz winstead was 'disappeared,'
or if you didn't call them, or if you didn't sign the petition to bring her back, or if you didn't stop listening online, if you didn't do 1 of those things (just 1) you are at fault too.
when congress wants to push through some objectionable piece of legislation, we have to flood them with calls, e-mails and letters to get them to listen to the people who elected them.
and it was the same thing there. i gave you guarded warnings as did c.i. i said lizz was treated horribly and when i have to stick up for her, you know it was horrible. we knew what was coming. i had e-mailed c.i. tuesday and got an e-mail back that same day saying do not miss unfiltered thursday. then yesterday c.i. e-mailed a breaking story from associated press about how jerry springer was coming to air america.
we knew. my friend elaine knew.
two of my e-mail buds knew too: martha and maria. they knew. they and others took it the unfiltered blog and elsewhere to say 'people get angry.' but you had liars on the unfiltered blog and elsewhere. not just idiots but flat out liars.
the 1s elaine didn't think were real people but ringers sent in by air america to hush the topic of the disappearing of lizz.
and what did they do?
they'd go online and say stupid things. they'd spread rumors that they "heard" or that they "knew" lizz winstead was sick. and that we shouldn't talk about her being gone because she is sick and needs her privacy.
that was a lie. people who repeated it lied to you.
when that lie started being fought back on the unfiltered blog, the liars tried a new tactic:
lizz likes to create a show and then leave. that's what she did with the daily show, they would lie. that is not what happened with the daily show and that is not what happened with unfiltered.
those people lied. they are liars. they are full of shit liars. liars that can kiss my ass.
they manipulated people with false information.
scared them that lizz had cancer.
nothing was off limits as they tried to get people to stop talking about how lizz was gone.
they had no shame.
were they ringers for air america? who knows. but they certainly spread lies to push an agenda of silence.
and people who fell for it, even when others on that blog would say, 'that's a lie!' well it's your fault.
because if the huge uproar that lizz winstead deserved had happened, they would have had to rethink the push to bring another male on because some were worried that 2 (white) women and a black man couldn't reach audiences.
what audiences?
white male audiences.
if you're a female, wake up. air america just spat on you.
they don't want you as a morning listener.
they want males. white males.
and they think they can get them by putting on pudgy, middle-aged men.
so if you're a woman with any self-respect, don't listen to that network when al and jerry are on in the morning. turn on randi when she comes on. stay for janeane. stay for malloy who doesn't do al's sexist jokes but actually respects women. on the weekends, listen to laura. listen to marty and bobby and mike.
but don't listen to this bullshit that's geared for white males.
if you're an african-american male, skip the bullshit of jerry and al. chuck d got served his walking papers. 2 black males on during the day was 2 too many.
if you're a male of any color, show some self-respect.
and if you're a white male who cares about women and people of color, just say no to al and jerry.
martha sent me a wonderful e-mail explaining how offensive this was to her as an african-american and a woman.
she also included a parody of the asshole liars who tried to hush the talk of lizz. this is what she sees as the blog on march 31st, the last day unfiltered airs:
**blue: come on guys, we have to do what air america wants. we have no ideas or thoughts of our own. and you just go with the flow.
swing*****girl: absolutely. look people corporationsneed to do what they think is best! that's what this country is all about so just back off. yes, i loved rachel and i hope i hear her or see her again somewhere. but if this is what air america wants, hey i take my marching orders with a smile.
NOTDANNYGOLDBERG: swing*****girl and **blue, you are both so right! and besides, i hear rachel is really sick and doesn't want to talk about it.
**blue: that's right! what if 1 of you was sick? would you want the whole world to know? quit talking about the end of unfiltered! rachel is sick! you aren't helping her! she wants us to stop talking about this!
swing*****girl: that is so true. in fact i heard from a friend that lizz winstead wanted that too.
NOTDANNYGOLDBERG: i know that's what lizz would want to.
swing*****girl: i am not about the person! i am about the politic! and i will listen to unfiltered without lizz. i will listen to it with just rachel. because it is about the show! and now that the show is no more it is about the hour! so i will listen without questions or complaints to this three hour block of air time no matter who they put on!
**blue: here here swing*****girl!
read that because it's damn funny. and it's also very true.
so if you see conversations like that, if you're at an air america blog and you see that sort of shit,
know you're dealing with liars. know you're dealing with people attempting to strip you of your power.
if the liars hadn't spread (for over a week) the lie that lizz was sick and that's why she wasn't on the show, if they hadn't done that, the outrage would have built fairly quick.
instead they clamped down on the outrage by lying. they lied to you. they made you think lizz had cancer. they made you think if you objected or spoke about lizz being gone, you were making lizz's life harder.
they fucking lied.
and when enough people started calling them on that lie (and some called them right off -- a few brave voices), suddenly they pushed the lie that lizz likes to create something and once it's started, she likes to leave.
that was a lie as well.
you were lied to. you were lied to because they wanted to quiet you.
if you had been enraged and flooding them with complaints, they would have had to have done something. elaine doesn't think it would have brought lizz back. she does think it would have gotten rachel a female co-host and it would have meant that they'd have to figure out a way to keep unfiltered on the schedule.
right now, the liars are out there lying to you again. they're telling you that chuck d and rachel are going to be jerry springer's co-hosts.
they're saying 'just wait guys, you'll see.'
they are playing you for a fool. they did it before. don't fall for this shit again.
what happened to lizz winstead was disgusting.
she helped create that network, not just unfiltered, not just her own show. she was there before the network had even shored up the hosts. she was there figuring out how to make al's program more interesting, for instance. (randi rhodes's program was all randi. she was already doing it and doing it damn well.)
the network wouldn't have lasted a year without lizz winstead's contributions. and the thanks she gets is that on the one year anniversary of unfiltered (april 1st) the show will no longer be on.
now if you scream right now, they might find rachel a slot on the weekend.
that's up to you.
but don't fool yourself that the network's inclusive.
a woman can play mommy and let al be the bad boy. a woman can be the patricia heaton of the network. but that's all they want.
they didn't promote randi who was already on air for years and successful in the markets her show aired in. they shoved al franken down your throat.
that would be the big titty baby who 'stood up' to bill o'reilly on c-span. remember that? when big bad al started whining and his voice was breaking and he was about to cry like a little titty baby.
and i've told you to look at al's guests. i've told you to ask why you have those people from the american enterprise institue on. you know the one, i mean. al's friend norm. what the fuck is he doing on the network?
or what the fuck are all those other 'centrists' doing on al's show.
al has lost his sense of humor. he had 1. it was sexist and could be off putting. but he had 1.
now he just wants to gloat that arafat's dead. and he wants to do that over and over.
he gave ronnie reagan a pass during the week long is-he-still-dead reporting. he got offended when the great greg palast attempted to bring up the reality of reagan. he couldn't even let jeremy glick speak when glick was on.
al's a loser. he's a fat fucking loser. some of you 1st noticed it when he interviewed jesse helms's biracial daughter. an elderly woman whom al thought it was appropriate to make cracks about where her mother had sex - the garden or the kitchen? that wasn't tasteful and it wasn't funny.
but you've seen the hate spewed constantly at arafat. and you've heard him present his view of the peace process as the only view. over and over.
unfiltered is gone. and with it, 3 people who would challenge the democratic party's rush to the right. and you're left with al franken, the self-proclaimed dlc liberal. as though there's anything liberal about the dlc.
After fellow panelist Molly Ivins disabused O'Reilly's claims that she was a "liberal," Franken declared, "Unlike Molly, I am a liberal," adding curiously "I'm a DLC Democrat." Curious, because anyone who knows the centrist, pro-business Democratic Leadership Council knows that it has nothing to do with being "liberal" (in the generally accepted definition of that word; if Franken were to say he was a neoliberal, his identification with the DLC would make perfect sense).
that's from "Al Franken and Al-Shifa: The Age of Sacred Apologies" by tom gorman.
it appeared in counterpunch. and for the record, molly ivins sees herself as a progressive.
one more quote to clue you in on al, from tom gorman's article:
Franken, as well as his fans, need to be extremely careful of falling into the "enemy of my enemy is my friend" mentality that can ally good people with the lesser of two evils. Witness this Fox News-worthy Franken quote from the August 25 edition of CNN's Crossfire: "I think the American armed services did a damned good job in Iraq and a damned good job in Afghanistan, frankly."
that's the hero of the left. that's the man being set up as our savior. the man who turned titty baby when confronting o'reilly. and he's going to lead us to the promised land?
3/23/2005
enough on terry schiavo
yes, i took off last night. a friend begged me to go to the movies with her. she's going through a break up and convinced that her girlfriend is correct and she'll never find any 1 else. so we went to the movies because she needed to get out of her place (formerly 'their place' - she kept the condo).
when i got home i thought about doing a post but i look around online while i've got the radio on and all i'm seeing and hearing is schiavo, schiavo, schiavo.
i wasn't in the mood.
the media circus rides continues.
a judge gives a verdict. the media pants. an appeal is filed. the media drools. and always non-stop talk.
talk talk
talk around the clock
as joni mitchell sings in 'tax free.'
did you ever hear such a choir?
oh sure you have some tenor voices. some baritone voices. some sopranos. some altos. a little bass thrown in for the mix.
but it's the same damn song - just different people singing their different parts (melody and counter-melody).
and it all makes this huge din that drowns out everything else.
as ani difranco sings 'and everywhere i go it's the same fucking song.'
correction: c.i. e-mailed asking what version of 'fuel' i was talking about. the 1 on little plastic castles. and i go to listen and ani sings 'and everywhere i go it's the same damn song.' my bad. 3-25-2005
that's the state of american media today.
and i mean all media -- the dinasours as well as the net age that was supposed to give us the brave net world that, more and more, sounds just like the weak old world.
who would've though the internet would obsess to the nth degree over the same topic as cokie roberts?
has cokie roberts suddenly become relevant? hardly.
what you are seeing is a media feeding frenzy (as c.i. noted yesterday at the common ills).
it's like nothing since o.j. simpson. i'm not sure even the laci/scott peterson story reached this level of saturation.
why has it been done to death?
for a number of reasons.
it's an emotional issue. so it gets attention. that means it delivers viewers, readers (for printed papers) and listeners. we always knew the dinasour media was all about the ratings. they'd go into a feeding frenzy on any topic that might pump up the ratings.
but in the not so brave net world, the 1 that was supposed to allow stories to break through that the mainstream was sitting on, we see the new enemy. the new nielsens are "hits." "visits."
every 1 seems to be chasing this easy to do, emotional story to get an increase in the hits.
there's something that needs to be said about the devices used to track visitors and i'll wait to address that another time. but make no mistake, the not so brave, not so new, net world is turning out to be as ratings driven as any 1 else.
a blogger i have never mentioned at this site who is male e-mailed me yesterday saying he was sick of blogging on this topic. (we've been e-mailing from time to time. he thinks i'm 'sassy and funny.') he goes to great lengths to tell me he's exhausted on this topic. then i see he's written about it again today. after sending that e-mail yesterday.
why do you write about something that you say you're exhausted on?
this is the o.j. case, people.
there is reporting. that was done early on. the only thing to discuss after that was the gop memo (which randi discussed friday on her show), that a court had a finding and what the decision was, and that an appeal is filed (because an appeal is always filed).
now if someone wants to go into ethics, that's a story. that's 1 story.
but this thing is being strip-mined repeatedly.
what can i write about?
that seems to be the question.
and the easiest thing to write about (or talk about or show clips of or whatever) is terry schiavo because it pushes buttons and gets attention.
and they keep going there and going there.
and no surprise, there's less and less to go to. which is why you hear bad jokes about terry schiavo on the radio. i heard 4 today. 1 on a left wing show, 1 on a right wing show, 1 on a sports radio show and 1 on morning drive.
there's nothing left. all the talking points (on both sides) have been done, redone, done to death.
and no 1 wants to credit. i heard people repeatedly cite bob somerby's revelation today. the 1 he made yesterday (the common ills highlights it in yesterday's post that i linked to above). every 1 is all over that a doctor is not a nobel nominee. i heard it over and over. and i didn't hear 1 person say, 'as bob somerby pointed out on the daily howler.' no 1 gave him credit. they just ripped him off and maybe they're listeners thought they had come across this thought. it came off like it was their own revelation. over and over, from show to show, web site to web site.
that's what it has come to. people no longer have any thing original to say. they know there's not a lot of work required in this story - you just push buttons -- and to add a factoid or 2, they rip off a bob somerby or some 1 else.
that's wrong.
and when you're going on and on about the ethics involved in this story, how ethical is it to rip off some 1 else's work and not give them credit?
i'd never read the daily howler before my friend elaine put me wise to the common ills. i'd never even heard of it or bob somerby. in the many months since i became a member of the common ills, i've seen his work highlighted. i've usually thought 'that's pretty astute' and sometimes i've been interested enough in what ever pull quote c.i. posted to click on the link and read somerby's writing in full.
if i ever use something he wrote knowingly, i will credit him. i say 'knowingly' because he's made a lot of points and i'm sure at some point (maybe already) i'll forget that he made it 1st. but come on people, there's allowing insight to seep in over time and there's ripping some 1 off less than a day later! no 1 can read yesterday's post and forget where they read it. that's insane.
people know they read it at the daily howler and they could give credit. but instead they pass it off as their own.
again, i ask, how ethical is that?
this isn't me reading his posts from the past that c.i. highlighted on president's day and a month or two from now making a point that i've absorbed so much i've forgotten that it wasn't mine to begin with. in 1 day (or less) how can you forget where you read it?
i don't think you do. i just think that you make a choice not to give credit.
and it's not ethical.
so spare us all the hand wringing and all the gotcha-points on some hypocrisy you're reporting on when you can't even cite where you got your nobel point.
the thing was a private matter. the courts have agreed with that. somehow people have pumped it into the story of the decade.
it bothers me.
and it worries me.
for 1 thing, what will poor michael jackson have to do now to get attention? he's already worn pajamas to court. does he have to show up nude now?
and forget jackson and the other infotainment stories, what about the very real, very serious stories that are going on right now?
we already saw the online community take a pass on the ohio hearing. we saw stephanie tubbs-jone be ignored. after all our talk of how we would support democrats who took a stand, we ignored what stephanie tubbs-jones did.
what else is going on? what other stories are we missing out on? and at what point will we all shut up about this story? people get the point. i was riding the ferry yesterday and every 1 gets the point. at this rate, if you continue to harp on this story, you'll create a fucking backlash.
and that should worry every 1 on the left. because america gets it. they get that this isn't about anything other than the republicans attempting to use a personal tragedy for political gain. but the excess in the left's response may end up creating a backlash.
if there's a development and you need to highlight it by all means do so. and credit whomever you got the point from. but this constant hand wringing needs to stop - especially now that 'jokes' are starting to creep in.
it's an easy story to do. that's why cokie and her ilk can cover it. it pushes emotions, pushes buttons, gets people talking. not because of anything most of the people covering it (in any format) have done. but because it's a natural hot-button issue. so people keep going back to that issue to get more and more. hoping to increase ratings, circulation or web traffic.
it is a personal tragedy and the coverage is starting to cross the line.
and people are starting to get bored. i love the majority report but sam seder is talking about this (again! again! again!) and i can't take it another night. i'll turn on the tv or go visit some friends. i do not need to hear this over and over.
yes, her parents are attempting to get press on this. but the courts have said the issue is decided. they have said that over and over. jebbie's stepping in. or trying to. if you want to cover that, cover that. but quit repeating the same things that we've heard all week over and over.
the left doesn't need an echo chamber. it needs people raising issues and stories that haven't been covered. and if you're contributing to the zone of silence on all other issues you are playing into the bully boy's hands.
i just went to buzzflash. it's a great site. it's the best thing the left has to offer and reaches so many readers each day. but it disturbs me to count 36 stories on terry schiavo in 1 form or another. 36 stories.
are there 36 stories there? no. there's a lot of hot air. there's a lot of repetition. and there's a lot more going on in the world then this personal tragedy.
i'm not trying for a buzzflash link here, in case any 1's wondering. if any 1 doubts that, watch this:
fuck, fuck, fuck.
christian parenti's cock is probably perfection. it is my dreams.
i bet dahr jamail really knows how to use the cock he's packing.
okay?
buzzflash link officially denied. so don't think i'm going for that or was attempting that.
i would prefer not to contribute in any way to the chorus that keeps signing the same tune with the right singing the melody and the left singing the counter melody.
and i promise i will not post on this subject again. but my point here is not schiavo, my point here is that there are other stories and that the attention being paid to this 1 story is overwhelming many other stories that are important and should be getting traction but won't as long as we keep hand wringing over this 1 story.
i don't know that karl rove is a genius. maybe we're just fucking idiots?
because this was designed as a ploy to feed the extreme evangical base and to take attention off other stories (tom delay, osama, etc.). if kar had a stroke of genius, it's because we were too fucking stupid to attempt moderation. we felt the need to flood the zone with this story and to go to it over and over to the point that we're hearing people say they're sick of the story.
oversaturated.
and the net was supposed to be our brave net world of freedom? seems to me like we all better think about shopping for pearls this weekend because a lot of us are turning into cokie roberts whether we intended or not. (i think most people shirk from the notion that they might some day turn into insta-expert cokie.)
you want some real news that you're not hearing about? get your ass over to ron's site. go to why are we back in iraq and learn about what he's covering. here's a hint, it doesn't involve a topic that the whole blog world is talking about. maybe that's why it's so goddamn important?
think about what you're learning from the news and commentaries lately and ask yourself how much longer this chorus needs to keep singing the same fucking song?
i've said my peace on this. and addressed it only because i agree with the common ills community members including wally who wrote me an e-mail this morning saying that his high school class was sick of it and was hoping some 1 else would say so besides c.i. wally lives in florida and if it's bad for me up north, i can only imagine how much worse it is for wally and the kids in his class.
so for wally and his class, i'll end with this item (put it with ron's and anything you find at the common ills and you've got a lively classroom discussion tomorrow):
Senate Foreign Relations Chair Richard Lugar (R-Ind.) scheduled hearings for April 7 on the confirmation of John Bolton as the U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations.
that's from ian williams' "bolton vs. united nations" which you can find online at in these times magazine. april 7th isn't that far way. so wally, read ian williams' article and bring that up in class. that's news and it's 1 of the many topics that we've lost sight of now that the choir only wants to sing 1 tune.
when i got home i thought about doing a post but i look around online while i've got the radio on and all i'm seeing and hearing is schiavo, schiavo, schiavo.
i wasn't in the mood.
the media circus rides continues.
a judge gives a verdict. the media pants. an appeal is filed. the media drools. and always non-stop talk.
talk talk
talk around the clock
as joni mitchell sings in 'tax free.'
did you ever hear such a choir?
oh sure you have some tenor voices. some baritone voices. some sopranos. some altos. a little bass thrown in for the mix.
but it's the same damn song - just different people singing their different parts (melody and counter-melody).
and it all makes this huge din that drowns out everything else.
as ani difranco sings 'and everywhere i go it's the same fucking song.'
correction: c.i. e-mailed asking what version of 'fuel' i was talking about. the 1 on little plastic castles. and i go to listen and ani sings 'and everywhere i go it's the same damn song.' my bad. 3-25-2005
that's the state of american media today.
and i mean all media -- the dinasours as well as the net age that was supposed to give us the brave net world that, more and more, sounds just like the weak old world.
who would've though the internet would obsess to the nth degree over the same topic as cokie roberts?
has cokie roberts suddenly become relevant? hardly.
what you are seeing is a media feeding frenzy (as c.i. noted yesterday at the common ills).
it's like nothing since o.j. simpson. i'm not sure even the laci/scott peterson story reached this level of saturation.
why has it been done to death?
for a number of reasons.
it's an emotional issue. so it gets attention. that means it delivers viewers, readers (for printed papers) and listeners. we always knew the dinasour media was all about the ratings. they'd go into a feeding frenzy on any topic that might pump up the ratings.
but in the not so brave net world, the 1 that was supposed to allow stories to break through that the mainstream was sitting on, we see the new enemy. the new nielsens are "hits." "visits."
every 1 seems to be chasing this easy to do, emotional story to get an increase in the hits.
there's something that needs to be said about the devices used to track visitors and i'll wait to address that another time. but make no mistake, the not so brave, not so new, net world is turning out to be as ratings driven as any 1 else.
a blogger i have never mentioned at this site who is male e-mailed me yesterday saying he was sick of blogging on this topic. (we've been e-mailing from time to time. he thinks i'm 'sassy and funny.') he goes to great lengths to tell me he's exhausted on this topic. then i see he's written about it again today. after sending that e-mail yesterday.
why do you write about something that you say you're exhausted on?
this is the o.j. case, people.
there is reporting. that was done early on. the only thing to discuss after that was the gop memo (which randi discussed friday on her show), that a court had a finding and what the decision was, and that an appeal is filed (because an appeal is always filed).
now if someone wants to go into ethics, that's a story. that's 1 story.
but this thing is being strip-mined repeatedly.
what can i write about?
that seems to be the question.
and the easiest thing to write about (or talk about or show clips of or whatever) is terry schiavo because it pushes buttons and gets attention.
and they keep going there and going there.
and no surprise, there's less and less to go to. which is why you hear bad jokes about terry schiavo on the radio. i heard 4 today. 1 on a left wing show, 1 on a right wing show, 1 on a sports radio show and 1 on morning drive.
there's nothing left. all the talking points (on both sides) have been done, redone, done to death.
and no 1 wants to credit. i heard people repeatedly cite bob somerby's revelation today. the 1 he made yesterday (the common ills highlights it in yesterday's post that i linked to above). every 1 is all over that a doctor is not a nobel nominee. i heard it over and over. and i didn't hear 1 person say, 'as bob somerby pointed out on the daily howler.' no 1 gave him credit. they just ripped him off and maybe they're listeners thought they had come across this thought. it came off like it was their own revelation. over and over, from show to show, web site to web site.
that's what it has come to. people no longer have any thing original to say. they know there's not a lot of work required in this story - you just push buttons -- and to add a factoid or 2, they rip off a bob somerby or some 1 else.
that's wrong.
and when you're going on and on about the ethics involved in this story, how ethical is it to rip off some 1 else's work and not give them credit?
i'd never read the daily howler before my friend elaine put me wise to the common ills. i'd never even heard of it or bob somerby. in the many months since i became a member of the common ills, i've seen his work highlighted. i've usually thought 'that's pretty astute' and sometimes i've been interested enough in what ever pull quote c.i. posted to click on the link and read somerby's writing in full.
if i ever use something he wrote knowingly, i will credit him. i say 'knowingly' because he's made a lot of points and i'm sure at some point (maybe already) i'll forget that he made it 1st. but come on people, there's allowing insight to seep in over time and there's ripping some 1 off less than a day later! no 1 can read yesterday's post and forget where they read it. that's insane.
people know they read it at the daily howler and they could give credit. but instead they pass it off as their own.
again, i ask, how ethical is that?
this isn't me reading his posts from the past that c.i. highlighted on president's day and a month or two from now making a point that i've absorbed so much i've forgotten that it wasn't mine to begin with. in 1 day (or less) how can you forget where you read it?
i don't think you do. i just think that you make a choice not to give credit.
and it's not ethical.
so spare us all the hand wringing and all the gotcha-points on some hypocrisy you're reporting on when you can't even cite where you got your nobel point.
the thing was a private matter. the courts have agreed with that. somehow people have pumped it into the story of the decade.
it bothers me.
and it worries me.
for 1 thing, what will poor michael jackson have to do now to get attention? he's already worn pajamas to court. does he have to show up nude now?
and forget jackson and the other infotainment stories, what about the very real, very serious stories that are going on right now?
we already saw the online community take a pass on the ohio hearing. we saw stephanie tubbs-jone be ignored. after all our talk of how we would support democrats who took a stand, we ignored what stephanie tubbs-jones did.
what else is going on? what other stories are we missing out on? and at what point will we all shut up about this story? people get the point. i was riding the ferry yesterday and every 1 gets the point. at this rate, if you continue to harp on this story, you'll create a fucking backlash.
and that should worry every 1 on the left. because america gets it. they get that this isn't about anything other than the republicans attempting to use a personal tragedy for political gain. but the excess in the left's response may end up creating a backlash.
if there's a development and you need to highlight it by all means do so. and credit whomever you got the point from. but this constant hand wringing needs to stop - especially now that 'jokes' are starting to creep in.
it's an easy story to do. that's why cokie and her ilk can cover it. it pushes emotions, pushes buttons, gets people talking. not because of anything most of the people covering it (in any format) have done. but because it's a natural hot-button issue. so people keep going back to that issue to get more and more. hoping to increase ratings, circulation or web traffic.
it is a personal tragedy and the coverage is starting to cross the line.
and people are starting to get bored. i love the majority report but sam seder is talking about this (again! again! again!) and i can't take it another night. i'll turn on the tv or go visit some friends. i do not need to hear this over and over.
yes, her parents are attempting to get press on this. but the courts have said the issue is decided. they have said that over and over. jebbie's stepping in. or trying to. if you want to cover that, cover that. but quit repeating the same things that we've heard all week over and over.
the left doesn't need an echo chamber. it needs people raising issues and stories that haven't been covered. and if you're contributing to the zone of silence on all other issues you are playing into the bully boy's hands.
i just went to buzzflash. it's a great site. it's the best thing the left has to offer and reaches so many readers each day. but it disturbs me to count 36 stories on terry schiavo in 1 form or another. 36 stories.
are there 36 stories there? no. there's a lot of hot air. there's a lot of repetition. and there's a lot more going on in the world then this personal tragedy.
i'm not trying for a buzzflash link here, in case any 1's wondering. if any 1 doubts that, watch this:
fuck, fuck, fuck.
christian parenti's cock is probably perfection. it is my dreams.
i bet dahr jamail really knows how to use the cock he's packing.
okay?
buzzflash link officially denied. so don't think i'm going for that or was attempting that.
i would prefer not to contribute in any way to the chorus that keeps signing the same tune with the right singing the melody and the left singing the counter melody.
and i promise i will not post on this subject again. but my point here is not schiavo, my point here is that there are other stories and that the attention being paid to this 1 story is overwhelming many other stories that are important and should be getting traction but won't as long as we keep hand wringing over this 1 story.
i don't know that karl rove is a genius. maybe we're just fucking idiots?
because this was designed as a ploy to feed the extreme evangical base and to take attention off other stories (tom delay, osama, etc.). if kar had a stroke of genius, it's because we were too fucking stupid to attempt moderation. we felt the need to flood the zone with this story and to go to it over and over to the point that we're hearing people say they're sick of the story.
oversaturated.
and the net was supposed to be our brave net world of freedom? seems to me like we all better think about shopping for pearls this weekend because a lot of us are turning into cokie roberts whether we intended or not. (i think most people shirk from the notion that they might some day turn into insta-expert cokie.)
you want some real news that you're not hearing about? get your ass over to ron's site. go to why are we back in iraq and learn about what he's covering. here's a hint, it doesn't involve a topic that the whole blog world is talking about. maybe that's why it's so goddamn important?
think about what you're learning from the news and commentaries lately and ask yourself how much longer this chorus needs to keep singing the same fucking song?
i've said my peace on this. and addressed it only because i agree with the common ills community members including wally who wrote me an e-mail this morning saying that his high school class was sick of it and was hoping some 1 else would say so besides c.i. wally lives in florida and if it's bad for me up north, i can only imagine how much worse it is for wally and the kids in his class.
so for wally and his class, i'll end with this item (put it with ron's and anything you find at the common ills and you've got a lively classroom discussion tomorrow):
Senate Foreign Relations Chair Richard Lugar (R-Ind.) scheduled hearings for April 7 on the confirmation of John Bolton as the U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations.
that's from ian williams' "bolton vs. united nations" which you can find online at in these times magazine. april 7th isn't that far way. so wally, read ian williams' article and bring that up in class. that's news and it's 1 of the many topics that we've lost sight of now that the choir only wants to sing 1 tune.
3/21/2005
no kara, the new republic isn't a magazine of, for or by the left
if this posts thank c.i. and the uk computer gurus who are members of the common ills community.
it's interesting what happened and all the patches that i had to download and install. i won't bore you with it but since i only posted on ohio (and that was sunday) i'm curious as to what it was that drew 'pranksters' (as c.i. calls them) to my site.
if it were my potty mouth, i would've been 'pranked' long ago.
since the last entry i did was on sunday and it was on ohio i can't help but wonder if there's a desire to keep that story out of view.
and before some jerk for the new york times (little tommy zeller?) screams 'tin foil hats!' - i don't own a tin foil hat. the only time tin foil comes near my head is when i'm getting my hair streaked. (5 days ago to touch up the roots.)
so if you wondered where rebecca was, i was trying to log in repeatedly. and couldn't get in.
if i'd e-mailed c.i. hours ago, i probably could've posted sooner. (thank you again to c.i. and the common ills community members known as the uk computer gurus.)
c.i. had a post this morning that disappeared for a while and then reappeared (under a different day). kara had e-mailed me that post early this morning. when i clicked on the link i couldn't get the post. but kara wrote in her message, 'rebecca, please comment on this.'
while i was talking with c.i. i asked about it.
the post is back up, in it's correct place, and i'll quote from it here.
Kara urges us to all take note of Sara Ivry's "Bush's Re-election Lifts Circulation at Liberal Magazines." From the article:
"We had a huge spike in orders beginning the day after the election," said Art Stupar, vice president for circulation at The Nation, which comes out weekly. "In fact, our Web site, in the week following the election, generated 2,600 subscriptions." Typically, The Nation gets no more than 500 subscriptions a week through its Web site, he said.Overall subscriptions to The Nation reached 184,000 at the end of December, up 24,000 from the previous year; they have doubled since 2000, with a spurt in 2003, when the war in Iraq got under way. "You could say that all the way through, for four years, we've benefited from the follies of the Bush administration," Mr. Stupar said. Similarly, at The Progressive, a monthly, paid subscriptions grew 12 percent, to 64,000, over 2004, and have risen 72 percent since President Bush first took office. The American Prospect, another monthly, experienced a 27 percent increase in paid subscriptions last year, from 45,568 to 60,189.
Kara: Note that The Weekly Standard which too many love to note in 'blog reports' has a circulation of 73,710 by contrast. And apparently, so thrilled were National Review readers with Willian F. Buckley Jr.'s leaving, that monthly rag had a 20% bump and is now up to 173,815subscriptions. That The Nation trumps the right-wing makes me very happy. But I especially loved the last paragraph. Please quote it and I hope Rebecca [Sex and Politics and Screeds and Attitude] sees it and writes about this news:
One exception to the overall trend is The New Republic, a weekly whose liberal reputation has been tempered in the past by its muscular approach to foreign policy, where subscriptions held at 60,000 last year. "We tend to look at issues from more than one side," said the president and publisher of the magazine, Stephanie Sandberg. "We aren't the kind of place that everybody ran to out of anger."
My comment (opinion, I could be wrong), The New Republic does not "tend to look at issues from more than one side." Marty wouldn't allow it. And when the so-called liberal rag wants to get honest about Marty's involvement with PNAC, we'll know he's not calling the shots on what's in print. Rebecca, as Kara notes, has long been dealing with the fact that The New Republic is not a liberal magazine and it is not a left magazine. She has shared her opinion, she has cited others as well (including FAIR and Makethemaccountable.com). [Note, those links go to Rebecca's citations of those sources. Within her posts, she has links to Fair and Makethemaccountable.com.] Pretending that this rag is left (it's not, even Marty refrains from making that claim publicly) serves to narrow the discussion as you bring on a right winger from The Weekly Standard and then a mouth piece from The New Republic which you present as "left." It's not left and it's not owned up to the reasons why they supported the war on Iraq.
well let me say thank you to kara and c.i. for the kind words.
yes, i will talk about it and kara thanks for bringing it to everyone's attention.
the new republic has no audience to grow. they've got the diehards who pray the rag will get better. those people e-mail me here at this site. with statements about how the rag is trying to change. well has it gone left since marty bought it in the mid-70s? uh, no. it's continued to push right and more right.
when the owner of the new republic signs on with pnac, the rag's given up the right to be called left. (check the makethemaccountable post mentioned above.)
it's not going to change unless and until it changes owners.
look, stephanie's got a great voice in the air america commercials. she sounds sweet. but she doesn't control the magazine regardless of her title. this is the magazine that gave us andrew sullivan, people! it gave us fred barnes!
buy a clue already because vanna white and i are both getting tired.
most of the left knows about fair and makethemaccountable (wonderful sites, both of them). and the word got out long ago that the new republic was not left, would not ever be left.
that's why they can do all the commercials they want but no 1's rushing to subscribe.
that's why the nation, which is also a weekly, boasts a circulation of 184,000 and the new republic continues to dwindle at 60,000. people let me put you wise? no. many others have put people wise long before i came along to the blog world.
but i've stayed on this because the people who come here, a lot of them, hadn't heard about the realities of the new republic.
the mag is a dog with tick and fleas. it can't increase circulation because the right has their own rags that admit to being right. and the left knows better than to trust the new republic. (don't even get me started on their middle east coverage!)
i told you what got me attracted to the new republic to begin with, full page ads (often in color) of antonio sabato junior in his CK bvds. those were hot photos! really hot! (he may have been the first guy i ever saw and thought about doing anything besides holding hands. i'm not sure i thought about having sex with him but i know i thought about touching that fine body all over.)
so i was interested in the rag. and when i'd read the stories, i would think, 'this is a left mag?'
i'm talking years later about reading the rag. i kept my copies in various places while i entertained myself with the antonio photos (use your imagination on 'entertained myself!').
i could leave it out in the open because it was a political mag and i doubted my parents would notice the ck ads. but i usually would slip them into a drawer near the bed to be pulled out quickly, or under my bed (ditto) or even under the mattress.
i have no idea why i finally started reading. i'm pretty sure it's around the time marky mark replaced antonio as the ck underwear model. (and if you wanted hot photos of marky in his y-fronts, interview magazine and vanity fair gave them to you. the new republic didn't give shit to those of us lusting after the male form after antonio was no longer the ck underwear
model.)
but i was probably bored and i started reading and it was such a shock because it wasn't a left mag.
i'm glad their subscriptions are flat and stay flat. i don't think that will change because of the hard work by people like fair and makethemaccountable and the daily howler.
but i know i'm reaching the kids now and i want to be sure that you guys know what's what.
and that you don't waste your money.
i also know that i reach people who don't go to other sites. (they don't discuss cocks and dicks at those other sites!)
so i make it a point to repeatedly inform you that the new republic is pro-war and has been under marty. it won't change while marty's there and may not change after he's gone. yes, stephanie has a lovely voice. maybe she's even a centerist. (she might be a liberal but i doubt it.) but rat poison comes in a pretty package too and i wouldn't open it with the intent of putting it in my hands.
a lot of people e-mailed about the ohio issue and i'm going to repeat what i told the people who e-mailed, i didn't make it happen. 3rd estate sunday review didn't make it happen. even the common ills didn't make it happen. you made it happen. you got out there and talked about it and e-mailed it to your friends and woke people up to something that the mainstream media was not discussing. you made it happen. so pat yourselves on the back because it was all thanks to you.
i'm wiped out from the 'pranking' earlier and what it took to fix it time wise. so i'll call it a night and promise to try for a longer entry tomorrow. buzzflash and iddybud and why are we back in iraq have been noted at the common ills for getting the word out so i will note them here. (and isn't jude a groovy blogger? she's a woman and we're supposedly wondering where the female bloggers are so why doesn't she get more attention for all her hard work? or is that all 'so last week' already?) ron is a great guy as well and i like his don't take any shit attitude.
i'm too lazy to do anymore links tonight, so i'll just pull from the common ills entry that has links in it to all three already:
Jude of Iddybud has written an incredible entry on what's going on in Ohio today. It's entitled"Your Vote: Worthless in the Eyes of MediaJudging from the lack of news media coverage, you probably haven't heard about today's House Committee hearing." This puts the entire thing into perspective (no relying on implications or allusions I did). Again, please read the entire thing. (Though judging by the e-mails a lot of members already have Maria gets credit for being the first one to e-mail on it.)
there's your iddybud link.
Jude took on the issue, BuzzFlash is noting it and Ron of Why Are We Back In Iraq? is also addressing it providing background on why Kenneth Blackwell was 'too busy' to testify last time. (No, Ron's not justifying Blackwell's thumbing his nose at the Congress and the people.) From his entry entitled "Did Anyone Hear About The Hearing In Ohio?"
there's your links for buzzflash and why are we back in iraq.
it's interesting what happened and all the patches that i had to download and install. i won't bore you with it but since i only posted on ohio (and that was sunday) i'm curious as to what it was that drew 'pranksters' (as c.i. calls them) to my site.
if it were my potty mouth, i would've been 'pranked' long ago.
since the last entry i did was on sunday and it was on ohio i can't help but wonder if there's a desire to keep that story out of view.
and before some jerk for the new york times (little tommy zeller?) screams 'tin foil hats!' - i don't own a tin foil hat. the only time tin foil comes near my head is when i'm getting my hair streaked. (5 days ago to touch up the roots.)
so if you wondered where rebecca was, i was trying to log in repeatedly. and couldn't get in.
if i'd e-mailed c.i. hours ago, i probably could've posted sooner. (thank you again to c.i. and the common ills community members known as the uk computer gurus.)
c.i. had a post this morning that disappeared for a while and then reappeared (under a different day). kara had e-mailed me that post early this morning. when i clicked on the link i couldn't get the post. but kara wrote in her message, 'rebecca, please comment on this.'
while i was talking with c.i. i asked about it.
the post is back up, in it's correct place, and i'll quote from it here.
Kara urges us to all take note of Sara Ivry's "Bush's Re-election Lifts Circulation at Liberal Magazines." From the article:
"We had a huge spike in orders beginning the day after the election," said Art Stupar, vice president for circulation at The Nation, which comes out weekly. "In fact, our Web site, in the week following the election, generated 2,600 subscriptions." Typically, The Nation gets no more than 500 subscriptions a week through its Web site, he said.Overall subscriptions to The Nation reached 184,000 at the end of December, up 24,000 from the previous year; they have doubled since 2000, with a spurt in 2003, when the war in Iraq got under way. "You could say that all the way through, for four years, we've benefited from the follies of the Bush administration," Mr. Stupar said. Similarly, at The Progressive, a monthly, paid subscriptions grew 12 percent, to 64,000, over 2004, and have risen 72 percent since President Bush first took office. The American Prospect, another monthly, experienced a 27 percent increase in paid subscriptions last year, from 45,568 to 60,189.
Kara: Note that The Weekly Standard which too many love to note in 'blog reports' has a circulation of 73,710 by contrast. And apparently, so thrilled were National Review readers with Willian F. Buckley Jr.'s leaving, that monthly rag had a 20% bump and is now up to 173,815subscriptions. That The Nation trumps the right-wing makes me very happy. But I especially loved the last paragraph. Please quote it and I hope Rebecca [Sex and Politics and Screeds and Attitude] sees it and writes about this news:
One exception to the overall trend is The New Republic, a weekly whose liberal reputation has been tempered in the past by its muscular approach to foreign policy, where subscriptions held at 60,000 last year. "We tend to look at issues from more than one side," said the president and publisher of the magazine, Stephanie Sandberg. "We aren't the kind of place that everybody ran to out of anger."
My comment (opinion, I could be wrong), The New Republic does not "tend to look at issues from more than one side." Marty wouldn't allow it. And when the so-called liberal rag wants to get honest about Marty's involvement with PNAC, we'll know he's not calling the shots on what's in print. Rebecca, as Kara notes, has long been dealing with the fact that The New Republic is not a liberal magazine and it is not a left magazine. She has shared her opinion, she has cited others as well (including FAIR and Makethemaccountable.com). [Note, those links go to Rebecca's citations of those sources. Within her posts, she has links to Fair and Makethemaccountable.com.] Pretending that this rag is left (it's not, even Marty refrains from making that claim publicly) serves to narrow the discussion as you bring on a right winger from The Weekly Standard and then a mouth piece from The New Republic which you present as "left." It's not left and it's not owned up to the reasons why they supported the war on Iraq.
well let me say thank you to kara and c.i. for the kind words.
yes, i will talk about it and kara thanks for bringing it to everyone's attention.
the new republic has no audience to grow. they've got the diehards who pray the rag will get better. those people e-mail me here at this site. with statements about how the rag is trying to change. well has it gone left since marty bought it in the mid-70s? uh, no. it's continued to push right and more right.
when the owner of the new republic signs on with pnac, the rag's given up the right to be called left. (check the makethemaccountable post mentioned above.)
it's not going to change unless and until it changes owners.
look, stephanie's got a great voice in the air america commercials. she sounds sweet. but she doesn't control the magazine regardless of her title. this is the magazine that gave us andrew sullivan, people! it gave us fred barnes!
buy a clue already because vanna white and i are both getting tired.
most of the left knows about fair and makethemaccountable (wonderful sites, both of them). and the word got out long ago that the new republic was not left, would not ever be left.
that's why they can do all the commercials they want but no 1's rushing to subscribe.
that's why the nation, which is also a weekly, boasts a circulation of 184,000 and the new republic continues to dwindle at 60,000. people let me put you wise? no. many others have put people wise long before i came along to the blog world.
but i've stayed on this because the people who come here, a lot of them, hadn't heard about the realities of the new republic.
the mag is a dog with tick and fleas. it can't increase circulation because the right has their own rags that admit to being right. and the left knows better than to trust the new republic. (don't even get me started on their middle east coverage!)
i told you what got me attracted to the new republic to begin with, full page ads (often in color) of antonio sabato junior in his CK bvds. those were hot photos! really hot! (he may have been the first guy i ever saw and thought about doing anything besides holding hands. i'm not sure i thought about having sex with him but i know i thought about touching that fine body all over.)
so i was interested in the rag. and when i'd read the stories, i would think, 'this is a left mag?'
i'm talking years later about reading the rag. i kept my copies in various places while i entertained myself with the antonio photos (use your imagination on 'entertained myself!').
i could leave it out in the open because it was a political mag and i doubted my parents would notice the ck ads. but i usually would slip them into a drawer near the bed to be pulled out quickly, or under my bed (ditto) or even under the mattress.
i have no idea why i finally started reading. i'm pretty sure it's around the time marky mark replaced antonio as the ck underwear model. (and if you wanted hot photos of marky in his y-fronts, interview magazine and vanity fair gave them to you. the new republic didn't give shit to those of us lusting after the male form after antonio was no longer the ck underwear
model.)
but i was probably bored and i started reading and it was such a shock because it wasn't a left mag.
i'm glad their subscriptions are flat and stay flat. i don't think that will change because of the hard work by people like fair and makethemaccountable and the daily howler.
but i know i'm reaching the kids now and i want to be sure that you guys know what's what.
and that you don't waste your money.
i also know that i reach people who don't go to other sites. (they don't discuss cocks and dicks at those other sites!)
so i make it a point to repeatedly inform you that the new republic is pro-war and has been under marty. it won't change while marty's there and may not change after he's gone. yes, stephanie has a lovely voice. maybe she's even a centerist. (she might be a liberal but i doubt it.) but rat poison comes in a pretty package too and i wouldn't open it with the intent of putting it in my hands.
a lot of people e-mailed about the ohio issue and i'm going to repeat what i told the people who e-mailed, i didn't make it happen. 3rd estate sunday review didn't make it happen. even the common ills didn't make it happen. you made it happen. you got out there and talked about it and e-mailed it to your friends and woke people up to something that the mainstream media was not discussing. you made it happen. so pat yourselves on the back because it was all thanks to you.
i'm wiped out from the 'pranking' earlier and what it took to fix it time wise. so i'll call it a night and promise to try for a longer entry tomorrow. buzzflash and iddybud and why are we back in iraq have been noted at the common ills for getting the word out so i will note them here. (and isn't jude a groovy blogger? she's a woman and we're supposedly wondering where the female bloggers are so why doesn't she get more attention for all her hard work? or is that all 'so last week' already?) ron is a great guy as well and i like his don't take any shit attitude.
i'm too lazy to do anymore links tonight, so i'll just pull from the common ills entry that has links in it to all three already:
Jude of Iddybud has written an incredible entry on what's going on in Ohio today. It's entitled"Your Vote: Worthless in the Eyes of MediaJudging from the lack of news media coverage, you probably haven't heard about today's House Committee hearing." This puts the entire thing into perspective (no relying on implications or allusions I did). Again, please read the entire thing. (Though judging by the e-mails a lot of members already have Maria gets credit for being the first one to e-mail on it.)
there's your iddybud link.
Jude took on the issue, BuzzFlash is noting it and Ron of Why Are We Back In Iraq? is also addressing it providing background on why Kenneth Blackwell was 'too busy' to testify last time. (No, Ron's not justifying Blackwell's thumbing his nose at the Congress and the people.) From his entry entitled "Did Anyone Hear About The Hearing In Ohio?"
there's your links for buzzflash and why are we back in iraq.
3/20/2005
get your asses over to the common ills and 3rd estate for ohio election news
get your asses over to the common ills and 3rd estate sunday review for ohio news.
we just finished working on the editorial (c.i. and i assisted) and usually that means a few minutes of chatter. i said 'no time to talk, i'm hanging up because we have to make sure people know that something is happening in ohio tomorrow.'
what?
a congressional committee is holding a hearing and among those supposed to testify are kenneth blackwell (boo, hiss) and the wonderful congress woman stephanie tubbs-jones (the crowd goes wild with cheering and applause).
the issue?
the 2004 vote.
why might you care?
well maybe you'd like to attend if you're in the area.
or maybe you'd like to know about something that the mainstream media hasn't given you a heads up to. (the beacon journal out of ohio ran an associated press item on it last wednesday.)
or maybe you want to know so you can pick up your tuesday paper or watch your monday evening news to see if the mainstream media does or does not cover it.
this is news, people.
so get on over to the common ills and the 3rd estate and make sure you get the word out.
i'll be posting later today but right now i intend to crawl into bed. sadly, i'll be crawling into an empty bed but as tired as i am that might just be for the best. christian parenti awaits me in my dreams at least.
we just finished working on the editorial (c.i. and i assisted) and usually that means a few minutes of chatter. i said 'no time to talk, i'm hanging up because we have to make sure people know that something is happening in ohio tomorrow.'
what?
a congressional committee is holding a hearing and among those supposed to testify are kenneth blackwell (boo, hiss) and the wonderful congress woman stephanie tubbs-jones (the crowd goes wild with cheering and applause).
the issue?
the 2004 vote.
why might you care?
well maybe you'd like to attend if you're in the area.
or maybe you'd like to know about something that the mainstream media hasn't given you a heads up to. (the beacon journal out of ohio ran an associated press item on it last wednesday.)
or maybe you want to know so you can pick up your tuesday paper or watch your monday evening news to see if the mainstream media does or does not cover it.
this is news, people.
so get on over to the common ills and the 3rd estate and make sure you get the word out.
i'll be posting later today but right now i intend to crawl into bed. sadly, i'll be crawling into an empty bed but as tired as i am that might just be for the best. christian parenti awaits me in my dreams at least.
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