At Home On Piety Hill

I think this Washington Post story puts its finger on the problem of declining network viewership, plummeting newspaper circulation and ad revenue.

Lured by an offer of interviews with the Democratic presidential candidate, Brian Williams, Charlie Gibson and Katie Couric will make the overseas trek, meaning that the NBC, ABC and CBS evening newscasts will originate from stops along the route and undoubtedly give it big play.

John McCain has taken three foreign trips in the past four months, all unaccompanied by a single network anchor.

The US has devolved from a representative democratic republic to a two party system with a press that has a cult-like fascination with only one party and philosophy. From the many to the one. Yes, we get one perspective. That’s all. That’s it. One right way to think. One portrayal of how normal people ought to view current events, culture and public policy. 

It’s not as if I don’t understand their strategy. It’s all about being relevant and close to the power people. It’s not about profit and objectivity is definitely out of fashion. When you’re aiming your product to the lowest common denominator and the other guy is indistinguishable from the hip candidate, except for age and ethnicity, follow the buzz and go with the winner! 

One word from a serious news consumer — boring! 

In a previous post, I identified Camille Paglia as my favorite feminist, lesbian, atheist humanities professor. Her latest opinion piece, Hillary vs. Obama: It’s a drawl!, is another splendid analysis of poilitics, pop culture and media. Camille rarely disappoints, so if you’re not a regular reader of her salon.com column, perhaps you should be. Here are some of her gems:

On Hillary Clinton
Hillary didn’t help herself with her over-the-top sermon at the First Baptist Church in Selma, Alabama, two weeks ago. Her aping of a black Southern accent from the pulpit was so inept and patronizing that it should get a Razzie Award for Worst Performance of the Year. At times, it approached the Southern Gothic burlesque of Bette Davis chewing up the scenery in “Hush … Hush, Sweet Charlotte.”

The Fossilized Media
Of course, any Salon readers who still follow the mainstream media out of numbed habit will never have heard Hillary’s most extreme flights of faux gemutlichkeit. All that Sunday, network radio news, for example, betrayed its liberal bias by running clips of only her noblest phrases. Heaven help any Republican who had made so lurid a gaffe! Fortunately, alternative media now exist: On his radio show that night, Matt Drudge ran huge, hilarious swatches of prophesyin’ Hillary camping it up.

Fox Right Wing Bias
But Fox is certainly disingenuous with its absurd “fair and balanced” motto. Oh, come on, give it up! Why can’t Fox honestly admit its conservative agenda, as do major radio hosts like Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity, and simply argue that it represents a culturally necessary antidote to the omnipresent liberal line?

Thumbs Up On Feinstein
Dianne Feinstein is far more presidential than Hillary Clinton, who alternates between smugness and defensiveness before pulling out that tiresome middle-aged mom card. Feinstein, even when maneuvering strategically, always seems genuinely focused on the idea at hand, while Hillary isn’t really there — she’s just riffling mentally through her team’s cue cards.

A Sober Take On Ann Coulter
Coulter is a smart woman with formidable energy, and whether liberals like it or not, she is a high-profile feminist role model in her appetite for aggressive debate. But Coulter seems to be regressing rather than growing intellectually and sharpening her analytic skills. She evidently leaves no room in her life for study and reflection… Her books may rake in millions but won’t last because they are shoddily constructed. Coulter should be using her syndicated column for her topical opinions but her books for more considered contributions.

Cheney and Bush
The relationship between Cheney and George W. Bush is also perplexing. Despite the nearness in their ages, Cheney acts like Bush’s father (no coincidence since Cheney served in George H.W. Bush’s administration). There’s something creepy about how Cheney, after heading the candidate search, insinuated himself into the vice presidency. He locked onto Bush like a limpet… It’s an unsavory, toxic relationship, a vampiric pseudo-marriage like that of the shadowy, Machiavellian Roger Chillingworth and the impressionable, waffling Arthur Dimmesdale in Hawthorne’s “The Scarlet Letter.”

A Diversion
I had a diverting experience last Saturday… While my family was at the Camden Aquarium for a special appearance by a SpongeBob impersonator, I walked around the once ravaged and still patchy and economically struggling neighborhoods, where Hispanic immigrants have settled. Suddenly, there was a stream of African-American men cutting across the streets and heading toward the Beckett Street Terminal for what was clearly the start of a work shift. I followed from a distance and gawked at the great warehouses of the South Jersey Port Corporation, which were stacked from floor to ceiling with tens of thousands of burlap bags containing a mystery product. As I approached the main security booth, beyond which only authorized workers could enter the dockyard, flatbed trucks with bright yellow cabs were emerging, one after the other, all laden with fat burlap bags. It was a phenomenally precise and synchronized procession, as each truck swept to a warehouse, was offloaded, and then circled back through the gate to the ship. I was full of admiration at this demonstration of the beauty and efficiency of the modern distribution system, which I extolled in the first chapter of “Sexual Personae” as a male-created artifact of civilization. It is one of the many gifts of capitalism that are invisible to academic leftists, who nevertheless expect the light switch to work, their cars to start, and the grocery store to be constantly stocked with fresh milk, orange juice and produce… I asked a guard what they were: “Cocoa beans”… With great delight, I spent the next 15 minutes dodging the trucks and filling my pockets with the best beans (to send with our son to preschool science class).

What About Capitalism?
Capitalism, which spawned modern individualism as well as the emancipated woman who can support herself, is essentially Darwinian. It expands any society’s sum total of wealth and radically raises the standard of living, but it leaves the poor and weak without a safety net. Capitalism needs the ethical counter-voice of leftism to keep it honest. But leftists must be honest in turn about what we owe to capitalism — without which Western women would have no professional jobs to go to but would be stuck doing laundry by hand and stooping over pots on the hearth fire all day long.

Britney Spears Gets A Break
I’ve commented on Britney’s travails and tacky exhibitionism for Us magazine and for the March issue of Allure (”A Case of Exposure”). The final question (from a lively young woman) after my lecture [video link] on religion and the arts at Colorado College last month was about Britney. My circuits began visibly to sputter and fry, like the overloaded mega-computer at the end of “Desk Set,” because as a public speaker I, unlike Ann Coulter, believe in tempering one’s witticisms out of respect for one’s hosts. Despite her current descent into squalor, I still see Britney as animated by a flame of original energy. Great stars make comebacks. Let’s see what Britney’s got!

Well, there’s more good news from the newspaper publishing industry. Metro newspaper readership, like viewership of network news, is down. From Editor & Publisher:

This is the fourth consecutive semi-annual report to register a severe drop in daily circulation and — perhaps more troubling to the industry — Sunday copies…

The Los Angeles Times reported that daily circulation fell 8% to 775,766. Sunday dropped 6% to 1,172,005

The San Francisco Chronicle was down. Daily dropped 5.3% to 373,805 and Sunday fell 7.3% to 432,957.

The New York Times lost 3.5% daily to 1,086,798 and 3.5% on Sunday to 1,623,697. Its sister publication, The Boston Globe reported decreases in daily circulation, down 6.7% to 386,415 and Sunday, down 9.9% to 587,292.

The Washington Post lost daily circulation, which was down 3.3% to 656,297 while Sunday declined 2.6% to 930,619.

Face it. People are tired of the passe´press and their all liberal, all the time editorializing, thinly disguised as reporting. People who want hard news and serious analysis are moving to new media on the web, talk-radio and podcast.

Personally? I enjoy sitting down and reading a real newspaper. But, the content has been so off-putting for the past 30 years, we finally canceled our last subscription last year. Sure, I miss some things, but the relief from the incessant finger-wagging, elitist, tendentious preaching embedded in every AP or Reuters article has been refreshing. I just wish they would read the writing on the wall (instead of their own press) and wake up to the fact that people out here want news, not their personal, bigoted worldview. If they would only listen to the market and suppress their urge to force their convictions upon the rest of us, they may survive.

That was my response to Denise on Saturday night after witnessing a so-called debate over abortion between Katherine Kneer and Scott Klusendorf. Katherine has served as the President and CEO of Planned Parenthood of California and Scott is the President of the Life Training Institute.

One would think that the president of the Planned Parenthood franchise in the most populous and, perhaps, liberal state in the US would have some command of the facts of abortion or a mastery of just a few of the philosophical/moral/ethical justifications for the practice! This was not the case and she conceded over and over that she did not intend to argue a case for abortion. Instead, she played to the emotions of the audience, poured effusive praise upon the work that that the LivingWell Clinic is doing in Nevada County and made the most pathetic plea to embrace her cynical real world view that infanticide is inevitable in our world, so we all need to welcome the culture of death. With the Sacramento cultural and political scene dominated by policy makers like Katherine, it’s no wonder people are plunging into despair and anti-depressant use (abuse)! She almost had me running for the prozac!

Scott responded with facts, well-reasoned arguments and plenty of compassion, even helping Katherine to articulate her position at times. He was kind, gracious and loving. His presentation was one of optimism, hope and courage in the face of a very nasty crowd that imposes their dogma of intolerance, violence and hopelessness on the rest of us.

For those women who have had an abortion and the men who pressured them into that decision, Scott offered compassion, understanding and real solutions.

Denise and I came away with the realization that the combination of government, the media, the educational system… the entire culture, militates against and is prevailing over common sense, common decency and the common good. But, we will not surrender.

Credit: Photo of post-natal abortion courtesy of the University of Maryland

Young People Flock To Second-Tier Sites Amid Shifting Tastes

This is welcome news, as far as I’m concerned. I just signed up on Facebook and the interface was noticeably less cluttered and usable. I’m not a huge fan of these new-fangled social networking sites, but from a design perspective things are starting to look up. As I pointed out when Ditty Talk rolled out, the MySpace design is just plain ugly and whenever someone adds a photo or video to their page, it gets pushed all out of shape and the user ends up scrolling in all directions.

These new contenders have some neat features that MySpace lacks:

Among the new social-networking sites is one called XuQa.com, run by San Francisco start-up business iVentster Inc., which lets users play games against their online friends and offers awards to the top scorers. Hi5.com, operated by San Francisco company Hi5 Networks Inc., comes with a built-in music player. Piczo, meanwhile, is similar to MySpace and Facebook Inc. in that it lets its mostly teenage users create personal Web pages filled with photos, video and lists of their online friends.

Best of all, they just look a lot better and seem to conform to web standards.

One of the two administrations faulted for not taking the war on terrorism seriously before 9/11 is freaking out over the ABC docudrama The Path To 9/11 and it’s starting to get scary. When one party threatens the broadcast license of a major network over a mini-series, it’s time to let them know that the Bill of Rights is just that… it’s not the Bill of Permits granted or doled out to citizens by government.

• Our borders and ports remain open to infiltration, Social Security is going down and what is the Democratic leadership in the Senate doing? Reminding ABC that they control the licensing of broadcast media.
• Meanwhile, President Clinton went straight to the top and demanded that the program, which cost ABC $40 million, be censored in order to protect his legacy.
• Then, he has his lawyers intimidate Disney.
• Madeleine Albright’s ability to earn a living as a consultant is threatened, so she started howling.
• Sandy Berger, convicted thief of classified documents, joined in the chorus of whining.

Meanwhile, yet another “hate Bush” film premiers in Canada, but the Bush administration calmly goes about their business. In this day of petulant pop-star politicos, it’s comforting to know there are some adults out there holding things together.

I saw a couple of paintings by Shane Grammer at The Underground Cafe… we were there to see Mike Roe perform (Kendall Payne was the headliner and she was very good, too). I checked out the website and was a bit intimidated, but ultimately inspired. He is not only a painter and illustrator, but designs spaces, as well. Amazing. Check out shanegrammer.com

What kind of hate am I listening to? Another news and opinion source I go to regularly is National Public Radio. How much hate do they generate? That depends upon the host or the feature, I suppose. I’ll comment on various NPR programs in later posts. One thing I do know: actions speak louder than words and hateful acts are much more unpleasant and intolerable than hate speech. I learned this first hand when our local NPR affiliate, Capitol Public Radio, broadcast two interviews by Steve Inskeep during the presidential campaign of 2004 and I expressed my negative opinion to “the staff and the management.” The result? A member services rep sent me a threatening email message from his personal Yahoo! Mail account. He told me, through a personalized and bizarre literary device, that I should be very concerned for my family’s safety, because he knew my phone number and address.

He wrote it under a pseydonym and thought it was coming to me anonymously. Fortunately, I was able to follow the path and found that he had sent it to me through his personal account, from a Cap Radio computer, while he was on the clock, over the California State University Sacramento network. He and his managers stonewalled me for a few days until I contacted the CSUS system administrator, who referred me to the legal staff in the President’s office. The staff member apologized immediately.

I don’t think that NPR, for the most part, is bigoted or hateful but evidently some of their local affiliates could benefit from some sensitivity training… perhaps a lesson or two in common courtesy and appreciation for or tolerance of diverse ideas and lifestyles.

What kind of hate am I listening to? That was the question I posed and answered in an earlier post. I listen to Rush Limbaugh regularly and I wouldn’t consider his program to be hateful unless sarcasm, analysis of current events, critique of opposing views, parody and the expression of strongly held opinions constitutes “hate.” If that were the case, Rush would be numbered among such notable haters as Garrison Keillor, Mark Twain, Al Franken and Will Rogers. The Simpsons, South Park and Saturday Night Live would be justly condemned as vehicles of bigotry, if Rush’s show is judged to be offensive. Why do I listen to Rush?

First, his show comes on at just the right time, while my hands are busy and my ears and mind are free. He’s the most professional talk-show host out there, regardless of ideology, and he’s generally funnier than the rest of the pack. The fact that Al Franken has enjoyed phenomenal success as a comic writer does not seem to translate to laughs on his radio show, while Rush is much funnier on air than he is in print. Go figure.

I started listening before the Web existed and I tuned in to hear him read news and comment on articles or opinion pieces in publications like the New York Times, Washington Post, The New Republic, The Nation and others. If anything captured my attention, I would go to the library and check out other literature on the subject. His show was a catalyst for me and it still is. He seems to have a real knack for identifying issues and trends which resonate with a vast number of Americans, across a wide spectrum of political or social viewpoints.

Child molestation cases involving Catholic priests have been all over the news since the 1990’s, pointing to serious sexual abuse among clergy of all faiths and denominations. What makes this such a powerful story is the fact that priests had built a solid reputation as trustworthy advocates for children over the years, yet that has all been undone now. When someone my age thinks of children and priests, we are immediately reminded of Father Flanagan and Boy’s Town. But, a relative few betrayed that trust and robbed so many children of their sexual innocense, plunging the Roman Catholic church into one of the most costly and devastating crises in its entire history.

What is more frightening is that these sexual abuse cases are relatively small in number and scope, when compared to the hundreds of thousands of children in the United States, who have been or are being sexually abused by professional educators over a similar time period. A study conducted for the Department of Education, Educator Sexual Misconduct, found that about 10% of all school children will be the target of some sort of physical sexual misconduct by a teacher during their K-12 grade education. Carol Shakeshaft, who authored the study, points out that the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops found that about 10, 667 children had been victimized by priests between 1950 and 2002. Based upon numerous studies which she has worked with, Shakeshaft extrapolated the number of school children suffering abuse by professional educators to about ten times that of the clergy!

One study of 225 cases of admitted sexual abuse in New York found that none of the cases had been reported to police and only 1 person lost their teaching license. Often the offenders in these cases are let off with a slap on the wrist. I wonder why that is. Perhaps it has something to do with the behemoth NEA, the teacher’s union that is so solicitous in having parents turn over their children to the “professionals,” when it comes to instilling morals and teaching about sexuality!

I noticed this trend about a year ago and have found a few local news stories, but rarely a national expose´or serious article on this disturbing, almost universal assault on our kids. There are stories of female teachers initiating sexual relations with young men, young women, kids with special needs and one teacher who molested 9 year olds, then slashed her wrists in front of the class. It’s about time for the progressive media get this story out across the country and, perhaps, save a few children some life-long trauma.

The other day at work, I was following my usual routine… performing menial labor, while I listen to talk or opinion on the radio. One of my customers, who would probably consider herself progressive, tolerant and erudite, came to the counter and asked, “how can you listen to so much hate?” I was taken aback and then responded, “man, you should have heard the hate I was listening to this morning driving up here. I had NPR on the radio!” Then, it was her turn to look surprised.

So, I thought it might be a good idea to reflect on what I listen to and why; then blog about it. I don’t watch commercial television and what little time I do have to enjoy video, I try to spend watching good films or something educational. But, I have hours every day when I am commuting or doing production work, so I listen to a very specific, well-rounded mix of radio and spoken word.

Now, before I start blogging about what I’m listening to, you may be wondering if I was serious about National Public Radio (NPR) and “hate?” Well, “yes” and “no.” You see, I am an amateur media analyst… I love watching how art, film and communication media are employed to educate, sell, persuade and manipulate people’s thinking. And, I’m equally fascinated by people’s response, when they are “getting worked.” But, I don’t see this process as necessarily bad and I’m not using the term “worked” as a pejorative, nor do I think all propaganda is bad. However, I do think there is such a thing as what Francis Schaeffer called “true truth.” And, I actually enjoy the challenge and the excitement of “drilling down” through what’s presented to me throughout the day and sorting out “what’s really going on.” It’s something of a hobby for me.

NPR is one of my staples… it’s one of my main sources of news, opinion and entertainment and I wish them success, even though I’m always urging Congress to cut their funding and make the private Corporation For Public Broadcasting earn their keep and compete on a level playing field with their commercial counterparts! I think, by and large, they do a good job, but they lean left and I find it amusing that there are actually folks who think that NPR or the BBC are “objective.” Face it folks, no news or opinion source is objective and I really don’t expect them to be. If NPR had to compete for listeners ($$$), I think they would be more diverse and cover a broader range of cultural and political perspectives in their programming.

When we are talking about “hate,” as defined by my customer, we are actually talking about critical opinion, parody, sarcasm, downright ridicule, etc.. So, do I hear that on NPR? By her definition, sure! I’ve heard some of the most narrow, bigoted, hateful language and opinion from NPR’s most vaunted personalities: Terry Gross, Garrison Keillor, Daniel Schorr and Steve Inskeep. But, more on them later… I suppose what I’m saying is that “hate” is a loaded word and its definition often depends upon which side of the opinion you’re on. Your sense of humor and ability to laugh at yourself and the absurdity of some of your deeply held opinions, along with the discipline it takes to be objective (when news organizations are not) will play a part in ones idea of what qualifies as “hate.” A rudimentary grasp of history can also be helpful, in putting things into perspective.

I found a professional writer (or, he found me), who loves John Wayne more than I do (T-Bone Burnett and C.S. Lewis, too) and he’s got a new blog. Check out Write Fink! and then follow his profile to his pro-site. Great stuff!

How a determined twosome turned a ravaged battlefield into a duffers’ oasis
By Tim McGirk/Kabul
Posted Sunday, Nov. 13, 2005

Like most obsessive golfers, Paul McNeill occasionally ponders the game’s standard frustrations–the blown putts, the sliced drives into the rough–and questions his devotion to such a maddening pursuit. But as a regular at Kabul’s only golf course, McNeill puts up with some extra hazards that would test the mettle of Tiger Woods. The grassless fairways of rock and stubble are cratered by rocket shells. The greens are in fact brown, a mix of oil and dirt with the consistency of quicksand. Approach shots are complicated by the possibility that insurgents have planted land mines on the course. And your swing may be off-kilter because you probably have a pistol strapped to your thigh, just in case kidnappers are lurking nearby. ‘Sometimes you look over,’ says McNeill, an aid worker from North Carolina, ‘and your partner is carrying a rifle in his golf bag.’

This amusing, heart-warming and inspirational story was reported here back in March, but evidently the editor at TIME.com just got around to reading PietyHill Press and found it newsworthy. Check it out. Our cub reporter remains committed to bringing you the best human interest stories from around the globe.

Sorry kid, but you’re out of a job! Time to fire up a blog!

BREITBART.com /Nov 13 9:53 AM US/Eastern :
Dark days are ahead for American newspapers, as sales tumble, a warp-speed news culture leaves lumbering dailies behind and scandals over flawed reporting taint heavyweight titles. US papers are battling an explosion in online information, a news agenda powered by bloggers and 24-hour cable news, and they can’t seem to connect with young readers. Credibility questions hang over several papers and journalists are under more scrutiny than ever in the highly polarised US political climate. Doomsayers say changes in modern lifestyles mean the days when American homeowners open their front door every morning and haul in a thick multi-section paper may be numbered. Latest figures released by the Audit Bureau of Circulations found a 2.6 percent drop in circulation for 786 newspapers across the country in the six months to September — meaning that 1.2 million people deserted their paper… Several US newspaper giants suffered heavy circulation drops — figures which mirror the declining readership across the globe…. In a survey last year, the Pew Research Center for the People and the Press found only 23 percent of people under 30 read a daily newspaper, compared with 60 percent of older people. (emphasis mine)

This is certainly good news and I’ve looked forward to this day since I became aware in the mid-80’s that the glory days of “objective journalism” were over and the dawn of the tabloid, masquerading as news, was upon us. As a new generation comes into adulthood without being tainted by the media wing of the American Fabian Society, there is some cause for hope. When you couple these statistics with the rise of private and homeschooling, plus the fact that so-called progressives are opting to have fewer children or none at all, perhaps we oldsters will see a return to sanity in our lifetime. Sure, the radicals still control the university, but it’s amazing how quickly a few months on a real job or caring for someone other than one’s self, can wipe away four to six years of indoctrination in victimhood, hedonism, socialist economics and disdain for western civilization.

October 6, 2005
Theologians debate message of Katrina
By RICHARD N. OSTLING
Associated Press Writer

New York’s Union Theological Seminary began the academic year with an explosive speech by Bill Moyers, late of PBS and CBS television, who was introduced as ‘the most respected journalist in America.’

“Most respected journalist?” Says who? Dan Rather? Union Seminary sure has slipped since the golden days of Bonhoeffer, Barth and Tillich! And, what are they doing mixing religion with politics? Perhaps Mahatma Moyers will enlighten us.

‘The country is not yet a theocracy but the Republican Party is,’ Moyers charged.

“Etymology: Greek theokratia, from the- + -kratia -cracy
1 : government of a state by immediate divine guidance or by officials who are regarded as divinely guided. ”

Wait just a minute… he must have the Republicans confused with that other party… the party that ran a failed seminary student for President… the party of the Reverend Al Sharpton and the Reverend Jesse Jackson. And, let’s not forget the Bible totin’ Senator and President Clinton. The former First Lady used to communicate with the departed spirit of Eleanor Roosevelt… would that qualify as divine guidance?

‘Democracy is in peril.’ He compared conservative Christian activists with Muslim terrorists who can cite ‘many verses in the Quran’ as grounds ‘for waging war for God’s sake.’ America’s ‘homegrown ayatollahs,’ he stated, are deceitful bullies whose ‘viral intolerance’ undergirds ‘an unprecedented sectarian crusade for state power’ and ‘political holy war financed by wealthy economic interests.’

Please allow me to translate Mr. Moyer’s bigoted, progressive patois: Tolerance is the only remaining virtue with one exception: there will be no tolerance for the Christian who doesn’t know his place… the closet. Those Christians who take their faith out into the neighborhood, the school, the court, the public forum, medicine, the arts and to skid row are intolerable.

Moyers cited the incredible devastation caused by Hurricane Katrina and linked this with the Genesis flood. He noted that millions of conservatives believe the biblical teaching that God brought the deluge to punish human sin and also accept ‘God-ordered genocide’ elsewhere in the Old Testament. His point: It’s dangerous to ‘read the Bible as literally true,’ and liberals must resist those holding that belief.

It sounds as if Mr. Moyers is the danger to democracy and the sad thing is that, he’s so deluded by years of fawning and veneration by his colleagues, he doesn’t even know how pathetic he sounds. He debased PBS and CBS; now he’s defiled Union Seminary!

By E&P Staff

Published: September 20, 2005 4:37 PM ET

NEW YORK The New York Times Co. announced a staggering staff reduction plan Tuesday that will likely mean some 500 job loses at the company’s many properties, including an expected 45 newsroom positions at The New York Times newspaper and 35 at The Boston Globe.

In a memo to staffers, company chairman Arthur O. Sulzberger, Jr. and CEO Janet Robinson wrote: ‘We regret that we will see many of our colleagues leave the Company; it is a painful process for all of us. We have been tested many times in our 154-year history as we are being tested now.’ They promised this would not impact the quality of the paper’s journalism.

And, that’s what’s so sad about this story… they don’t realize that it is the “…quality of the paper’s journalism” that has plunged “Pinch” Sulzberger, Jr. and his CEO into this morass. I don’t pretend to know for certain what forces are behind the loss of circulation and advertising, but I have a hunch. Perhaps people are finally waking up to the fact that they can get plenty of opinion from The Nation or The American Spectator, which openly admit their bias. The disgraced New York Times has been utterly exposed over the past few years as opinion under the guise of objective journalism. Their days of prestige and dominance appear to be coming to an end and good riddance!

The Shallow End: Penn founders. September 5, 2005. ABC News (Australian Broadcasting Corp): “Penn founders

By Rebecca Keating. Posted: Monday, September 5 2005 .

Rescue founders: Penn is clearly a better actor than he is a sailor. (Photo: AFP)

Sean Penn’s attempt to sail to the rescue of young victims of Hurricane Katrina has foundered.

The actor apparently forgot to plug a hole in the bottom of his boat, which began to take on water as soon as it was launched.

Things then got worse - the boat’s motor failed and those on board had to start rowing.

And then the final straw: bystanders eyeing off the massive entourage on the boat - it even included a personal photographer for Penn - taunted the actor.

‘How are you going to get any people in that thing?’

I bet the relief teams are hoping other do-good stars stick to what they know.”

An Unnatural Disaster: A Hurricane Exposes the Man-Made Disaster of the Welfare State
by Robert Tracinski
Sep 02, 2005

It has taken four long days for state and federal officials to figure out how to deal with the disaster in New Orleans. I can’t blame them, because it has also taken me four long days to figure out what is going on there. The reason is that the events there make no sense if you think that we are confronting a natural disaster.

If this is just a natural disaster, the response for public officials is obvious: you bring in food, water, and doctors; you send transportation to evacuate refugees to temporary shelters; you send engineers to stop the flooding and rebuild the city’s infrastructure. For journalists, natural disasters also have a familiar pattern: the heroism of ordinary people pulling together to survive; the hard work and dedication of doctors, nurses, and rescue workers; the steps being taken to clean up and rebuild.

Public officials did not expect that the first thing they would have to do is to send thousands of armed troops in armored vehicle, as if they are suppressing an enemy insurgency. And journalists–myself included–did not expect that the story would not be about rain, wind, and flooding, but about rape, murder, and looting.

But this is not a natural disaster. It is a man-made disaster.

The man-made disaster is not an inadequate or incompetent response by federal relief agencies, and it was not directly caused by Hurricane Katrina. This is where just about every newspaper and television channel has gotten the story wrong.

The man-made disaster we are now witnessing in New Orleans did not happen over the past four days. It happened over the past four decades. Hurricane Katrina merely exposed it to public view.

The man-made disaster is the welfare state.

This journalist goes on to put into words what many have expressed to me, in disjointed declarations and anecdotes, after days of reporting on the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina’s devastation of New Orleans.

I, too, have seen this contrast personally as devastating fires and floods have ravaged our part of the state of Californina over the past twenty years. During the 49er Fire in September of 1988, friends and neighbors banded together to evacuate folks in the deadly path and housed displaced families. I can remember driving in a caravan of pickups to Rough and Ready, where we loaded a house of furniture, while flames were topping the nearest ridge. Everyone pulled together and Nevada County was strengthened. By the way, just weeks before the fire, I had given a ride to the hitchhiking transient, who started the fire by burning toilet paper at his camp on someone else’s property.

The flood of 1997 showed me a different side of the community, when someone threatened to “blow up” government property, because his food stamps were late coming up to communities in the foothills from Marysville. Later, I was explaining to someone that the food stamps were late, because county workers had been allowed to go home and evacuate their families from the rising flood waters in Linda. This “ward of the state” responded, “Don’t they know we live from check to check up here?” That was my epiphany; I realized that there was a mob of people who thought their receipt of a couple hundred bucks of county assistance takes priority over hard working people getting their loved ones, pets and family treasures out of the destructive path of the raging Yuba River.

I think this author is correct: no amount of institutional or government preparedness could have saved New Orleans from the man-made disaster, which built up over four decades of harmful, enabling government policy.

I was cheered to fing that Sadie’s irritated with this nonsense, as well… I’m glad so many folks are seeing right through this sort of childish, scripted… it’s just so tedious… it’s so 70’s.

No sooner than I get rolling again and a widely published poet, Mishegas Master, drops in with one of the most incoherent rants I’ve seen in a while. Of course, I’ve never claimed to “get” poetry, so maybe it’s time to get back to school, so I can decipher “opaque comments that would bug most people” (to quoet a poet I do “get”). Anyway, here’s the comment, with my responses interlaced with the rage :

you fascist

Hmmm. That’s original. Let me see… a fascist would advocate fascism; from the Italian fascismo, from fascio or “bundle:” a political philosophy, movement, or regime that advocates a centralized autocratic government, severe economic and social regimentation, and forcible suppression of opposition.

That sounds a lot like modern liberalism and the institutions they control, such as the academy, social welfare and the arts. Econonic and social regimentation cannot occur in a free market society, where individual freedoms, such as property rights, are cherished. Rather, history has shown that fascism incubates and thrives in socialist states (Germany and Italy) or Shinto and Buddhist countries (Japan, Cambodia, China, etc.).

For example:

nazi

No, I am not now and never have been a National Socialist or Nazi. I lean to the right politically, so I think socialism is a dangerous system, which may actually be a form of incipient fascism.

jesus disciple pig!

Ah, now we get to the real issue. It’s Jesus… it always is. Here, the writer is obligated to condescend to me; “I don’t have a problem with Jesus, it’s his followers I hate.” That’s a pretty disingenuous argument… Jesus said that if people receive Him, they will receive His disciples. If they reject His disciples, the reject Him. Jesus doesn’t disown his followers, who are pigs like me:

We who are strong ought to bear with the failings of the weak and not to please ourselves. Each of us should please his neighbor for his good, to build him up. For even Christ did not please himself but, as it is written: “The insults of those who insult you have fallen on me.” Romans 15:1 - 3

And, Jesus welcomes non-Christian pigs, too!

how dare you criticize helen thomas, just because she doesn’t agree with your politics!

Now here’s a fine example of the fascist attitude… “How dare [I] criticize…” In this poet’s world, I have to “dare to criticize,” because I am not an enlightened progressive. The intelligentsia are untouchable… they are above criticism by someone like myself, from the lower castes.

If you will notice, however, I critiqued Helen’s boorish conduct… She acts like my kids did, when they were thirteen (and the way I did until I was about twenty). It’s pathetic to see a person, advanced in years with an illustrious past in journalism, regressing to the behavior of one of those teens at the mall wearing a “Porn Star” tee-shirt.

are you a former burnt out reporter that holds grudges simply because you couldn’t advance in your illustrious media career?

Huh? Do I look like a reporter?

your simple minded view of the world is typical of the way most of you republicans think.

Wrong again… I’m a Democrat. I suppose this poet lives in the black and white world where, if you critique someone who makes a fool of themselves attacking Bush, you must be a Republican.

if cheney were to run in 2008,

That was part of the joke… my bad. Cheney will not run in 2008 and I don’t know why Thomas doesn’t know that. The man’s heart is a ticking time-bomb and he’s made it clear, this is his last Civil Service job.

the only way he could win is if the party steals the election by rigging machines and paying off big-city crime bosses to count dead citizens like they did ohio in 2004!!!

I think this person confused the urban legends of voter fraud in Ohio in 2004 with the historical episode in Chicago, when JFK won the presidency with votes cast by dead people.

ps-you spell borscht this way, not the way you spelled it. if you’re going to represent the media online, at least learn how to spell words properly, you twit!!!

Okay, so I may be a twit. But, I checked my post and I spelled borscht, b-o-r-s-c-h-t. Unless I’m missing something, we used the identical spelling. Is there some inflection or emphasis a poet would add to this word, when spoken, that I should have indicated? Or, did the widely published poet read my post with such blinding anger and hatred for my ideological bent, that it rendered him/her dyslexic for one brief moment? This person may want to take up writing or some other therapeutic pursuit.

Well, it appears that BlogThis! is working again, now that I have the latest version of Firefox. I’ll have to try it with Safari. I even found an old blog post I had begun back in July, finished it and published it today. I hope Dan and Sadie like it.

No, what better way to innaugurate this feature than by reporting this tidbit of good news. It looks as if folks are finally starting to see that Newsweek and TIME are not news magazines, produced by journalists, but tabloids publishing editorials disquised as news.

Newsweek Drops Issue, Cites Poor Ad Sales @ Media Buyer Planner: “Newsweek Drops Issue, Cites Poor Ad Sales

Due to low ad pages during late summer, Newsweek is trimming the number of issues it publishes by one, opting for a double issue dated Aug. 29-Sept. 5, Mediaweek reports.

Through July 19, Newsweek’s ad pages have fallen 15.6 percent this year, to 970. It’s not alone. A lack of spending in the technology and automotive sectors has hurt the whole newsweekly category with ad pages falling 10.5 percent, to 6,332 through July 19.”